Even if you really want to, you have your workflow and rarely have the time to really get to know the new software. In the end, I was tired of getting slowed down by a constantly crashing software and not being able to render without artefacts. I thought the time spent on these issues with Premiere would have been better spent switching, especially since I was already colour grading in Davinci Resolve. To make the transition easier, here are some tips for switching from Premiere Pro to Davinci Resolve so you can get started as quickly and efficiently as possible:

Project Manager: Wait, where did I save my project?

One big difference between Davinci Resolve and Premiere Pro is how projects are managed. For this, the first thing you will see when opening the software is the Project Manager. This is the place to create and manage your projects. I’m honest: when switching, that was something that needed some time to adapt to, but it’s worth it.

While Premiere Pro projects are saved as files where you decide where, Davinci Resolve works with managed Libraries. These are structured containers that serve as a central repository for all project data. Libraries are managed via the Project Manager and can be hosted on your computer, on a networked server or in the Blackmagic Cloud. To switch between the three options, simply click on the one you choose in the top left corner of the Project Manager.

If you tend to make copies of your project on your computer to keep backups, this will change your workflow. But we’ll take a look at that later. For now, it’s important to know that projects saved in your active project library can easily be exported to your hard drive as a .drp file for a manual backup or transfer to another system. To export your project, right-click it and choose export.

Libraries come with some advantages. My favourite one: multiuser collaboration. I can’t describe how useful this is! Editors, colourists, VFX artists and sound engineers – everybody can work with the same project file on different workstations. Even at the same time, in the same timeline. Brilliant and timesaving.

Also speeding me up: powerbins. These are useful when working with media I use in multiple projects. They make media easily accessible across different projects, as long as it is in the same Project Library.  

Pages: Where do I start?

When switching from Premiere Pro, you’ll probably be used to using Dynamic Linking to get your edit into Audition, After Effects and Media Encoder to complete your postproduction process. In Resolve, this is what the Pages are for.

These follow the typical postproduction process from ingest to delivery, which provides a great advantage: you can have your whole postproduction in just one software. No exporting timelines for audio postproduction, visual effects or colour and no translation issues between software. There’s no need to manage multiple project files or export assets to get them from one project into another. Changes made in one page are instantly accessible in others, and you can quickly go back and forth as needed to change things.

I think to start, it’s important to say: Most things can be achieved in the Edit Page. Don’t get scared away by the masses of pages and functions! There are different ways to achieve your goal when editing, and you will get around very well, mostly by starting in Edit Page. Lots of functions from other pages are also available there. If you like, you can even turn off pages you don’t want to use in the preferences. To still give you a bit of orientation, here’s a quick overview of what the different pages are for:

The Media Page is for ingesting and organising. Right next to it we find the Cut page, which is an editing interface designed for speed. In the Edit Page, we have the traditional editing interface, which should be very familiar to you, coming from Premiere Pro. Quite different from After Effects is Fusion, the node-based workspace for compositing and VFX. The Colorpage – quite self-explanatory – is made for colour grading. Fairlight is the page where you can mix and master your audio after editing to then, finally, render your video out in the Deliver Page.

Interface basics: Where to find what you need

It will probably need some time for you to adapt to what’s different. One of the things that took me a while to get used to was the fixed panel places. While we’re used to being able to move everything around freely in Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve allows only view windows to pop out and be moved freely throughout all pages. But once I adapted, it made total sense where everything is.

In the Edit Page, one big part of the window is the timeline in the lower part of the screen. Above that, we’ve got the source viewer and timeline viewer. Note: When your screen is too small or your screen resolution is too low, you might only see one viewer. Don’t worry, you can easily switch between those pressing Q.

In the Edit Page there are nine panels you can open and close by clicking their buttons located in the upper part of the screen. The ones on the upper left side will then open on the left and vice versa. The Media Pool on the upper left will give you fast access to your footage. It’s the same Media Pool as in the Media Page which we’ll look at later. The Effects panel, the index, and the mixer should be intuitive when switching from Premiere, though the feature I love most in the panels is the Inspector on the upper left side.

It could be compared to the effects controls in Premiere but has basic effects like crop already integrated, as well as more advanced effects like stabilisation, speed change, retime, and scaling.

Even though most panels are fixed, you can give yourself some more space by closing the panels you don’t need. Depending on whether you have opened multiple panels from both sides or not, they can be full-screen height or half-screen height. Accidentally messed up your UI? Don’t worry. You can quickly reset your UI layout in the menu Workspace > Reset UI Layout.

You’ll find dual-screen mode, full-screen Timeline, and, using Resolve Studio, permanent full-screen video out in the same menu.

Live Save and Project Backups

When working in Premiere Pro I often feared software crashes. I tried to save after every single thing I did because autosaving just didn’t cut it. Davinci Resolves Auto Save, which is called Live Save, is on a completely different level. I never fear that something is gone! I’ve got way fewer issues with the software crashing, but if it does, I know that what I did last will be there.

To restore the backups, right-click the project in the Project Manager. This won’t overwrite the current project version you’re working in. If you’re used to copying your Premiere Pro Sequence to revert to an earlier version of your edit, you may like to check out the Timeline backup function. It works just like Project Backups and can be activated and customised in the same spot. To restore a Timeline Backup, right-click on the timeline in either the media panel or Media Page. Just note: Timeline Backups will be stored locally, even when working on Network or Cloud Libraries, so they will only be accessible on the system where they were created.

Media Page: Import and Media Organisation

The one time I’d highly recommend switching pages is when importing media into your project. Even though it is possible to import media on all pages except Deliver, the Media Page offers many options for importing and managing your media.

The Media Page is split into Media Storage and Media Pool. The upper-left is Media Storage, which might be familiar to you if you used the Media Browser in Premiere Pro. It’s effectively a file browser for finding or exploring files on drives mounted on your computer. What I find very useful about this: you can quickly review or check footage in the viewer in the top-right corner of your screen, even without importing. A little extra: hovering over the footage lets you scrub through and preview without loading a clip into the viewer.

The lower part of the screen is your Media Pool – the project-specific repository for all the assets you’re importing or creating in Resolve, like footage, audio files, timelines, etc. On the left side, you’ll find the current projects bin list with the master bin. It’s the top level of your projects’ folder structure where all the other bins containing your project’s footage are listed. The right side shows the inside of the currently opened bin.

To get your footage into Resolve, simply drag and drop it from Media Storage, Finder, or Explorer into the Media Pool. If doing so on the Media Storage Bin list, the folder structure will be translated into the bin structure of your project. When adding to the right side, all the footage will be unpacked into the current bin

But there are other import options that let you stay in Resolve, leading to the same results: when you navigate to your folder in the Media Storage and right-click it, you’ll see the option to import your footage folder and all its subfolders into the current bin. This I find useful when working e.g., with Sony in camera folder structures, where you don’t want all the extra bins. Alternatively, you can choose “add folder and Sub folders into Media Pool (creating bins)” to get your complete folder structure as sub bins in the current bin. This is helpful if you already have your folders sorted out on your hard drive and want to copy the structure into Resolve.

Ways to create and work with proxies

Depending on the footage you’re working on, you might want to render some proxies. This is one particularly strong thing in Resolve and speeds me up quite a bit. You’ve got two options: if you’ve already set up your project and imported your footage, it’s super easy to create proxies by right-clicking on some highlighted footage and choosing proxie media > generate proxy media from the project settings.

In this case, it will automatically create proxies for the highlighted clips and save them in the location that is set in the project settings > master setting when scrolling down to working folders.

The Quality of the proxies can be defined in the same menu at optimised media and render cash. The proxy resolution is defined in relation to the original resolution. Possibilities are, for example: original, half of the original, a quarter of the original, etc. By default, it’s set to “choose automatically”, which will generate at the current set timeline resolution. When working with proxies, you can switch fast between disabling All proxies, preferring proxies and preferring camera originals, in the Timeline viewer.

You can also see whether proxies are attached by the white (for high-resolution) or purple (for proxies) icon on your clip, which will be visible in the thumbnail of your clip in the media pool.

If you really want to speed up your preparation process in advance, you should look into the Blackmagic Proxy Generator, an external tool which will automatically be installed with Davinci Resolve. It gives you the opportunity to render proxies in advance, without even having to get your project set up before. The proxies will then automatically be attached when importing the footage into a project.

This process will ensure you can go straight into editing when setting up your project. The strongest part of this tool is the watch folder function, which continues to scan your chosen folders for additional footage even after generating proxies. Very useful when you keep adding footage to folders you’re already working with.

Organising footage with scene metadata and smart bins

After you’ve added everything to your bins, it’s time to organise your footage. With Premiere Pro, I used to either restructure footage directly in bins, which made everything messy quite quickly, or sort my footage into sequences. In Resolve, I recommend using the scene metadata and smart bins. I know that Premiere Pro also lets you create smart bins using metadata, but it wasn’t intuitive enough for me to use back then. Resolve on the other side makes it super easy:

On the Media Page, click one clip or highlight multiple, then navigate to the top-right to close the audio panel. This will give your open Metadata panel more space. Choose “shot and scene” from the three-dotted menu. There, you’ve got lots of options to set metadata. One thing I like to use in this context is Clip colour, since it gives me an easy way to differentiate between different footage, for example, interviews with different people. Other than that, you can set metadata and let Davinci Resolve create smart bins based on it. For a start, I’d recommend you use Keywords. To do so, enter a Keyword you want to sort your footage by into the Keyword cell.

Then navigate to the bottom-left of your screen to find the Smart Bin List. By default, there should be a bin for Keywords. Davinci Resolve automatically generates one smart bin for every keyword you set before. By clicking on ‘Keywords’, a menu with all the smart bins will open.

Personally, I love this feature because it lets me keep my original folder structure while allowing me to sort my footage more intuitively. It also allows me to have the same clip in different bins, e.g., for location and person, which speeds up my process. With all this said, you should have everything you need to make your first steps in the software. Next up: how to get your Project Settings and Timeline right to start your first edit in Davini Resolve.

The post Getting your bearings: Switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jana Johnston.

Blackmagic Design makes ATEM switchers and DaVinci Resolve for edit, colour, audio, and finishing. The tour pairs live switching with post so you can stop treating podcasts like a radio show with accidental cameras.

A tour built around practical workflow demos

Blackmagic Design is running its European Workflow Tour over two days, pitching a complete live and postproduction workflow based on Blackmagic Design products. The promise is faster output and better quality, but the programme does not define formats, targets, or benchmarks. It is a workshop, to try and experiment and look over each others shoulders.

The useful angle is simple: this is a low-risk moment to poke the hardware before you buy it, ask the awkward questions out loud, and compare notes with other crews about what actually breaks at 2 a.m. The programme text does not explicitly describe hands-on access or open networking time, so treat that as an opportunity rather than a guarantee. Dates and cities in the published schedule are Amsterdam on 19 and 20 March, and Berlin on 24 and 25 March.

Day one: podcasts, but with coverage you can fix in post

Day one targets podcast production, specifically turning audio-only podcasts into multi-camera shows. The workflow pitch centres on using ATEM live production switchers for the live cut while capturing ISO recordings of each camera angle, plus the final programme.

That combination is the practical hook: the live switch gives you speed, the ISOs give you options, and DaVinci Resolve is positioned as the finishing and delivery stage. The programme explicitly names delivery to YouTube and X.

The podcast sessions run 11:00–12:00 on “Design a Complete Podcast Production Workflow”, 12:30–13:30 on “Create Video Podcasts Faster with ATEM ISO”, 14:00–15:00 on “Finish and Deliver Podcasts in DaVinci Resolve”, and 15:30–16:30 on “Global Podcast Production with Cloud Collaboration”.

Day two: Resolve for high-volume content and consistency

Day two is framed as “DaVinci Resolve for Content Creation”, with a focus on working in one application from start to finish, handling large volumes of media, maintaining creative control and consistency, and working collaboratively with cloud collaboration.

Sessions run 10:30–12:00 on “Simplify Content Creation with DaVinci Resolve”, 12:30–13:30 on “Edit Large Media Libraries Quickly”, 14:00–15:00 on “Maintain Creative Control and Brand Consistency”, and 15:30–16:30 on “Work Faster with Cloud Collaboration”.

New tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, ideally with your own media, your own deliverables, and a plan for when the first thing goes sideways. So, give it a try at the Workshops!

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/event/european-workflow-tour-2026

The post BMD European Tour 2026 lets you touch the gear first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

LOOKSfilm brought Overmind Studios in as the sole VFX vendor for all six episodes of A World Divided, a historical drama following six real figures from World War II through the 1960s. The series blended archival material with recreated drama and moved across locations from New Mexico and China to Russia, Israel and French Algeria.

Shot in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Poland, the project demanded constant geographic reshaping and period-authentic cleanup to sell multiple continents and decades, all while working to rolling episodic deadlines.

Tobias Kummer was VFX lead on A World Divided at Overmind Studios. He supervised on set on key shoot days, built the project pipeline and delivered the work alongside André Gerhardt as a two-person VFX team. (Site | IMDB | Linkedin | Xing)

DP: How did you come onto A World Divided, and what was the overall scope?

Tobias Kummer: LOOKSfilm brought us in as the sole VFX vendor for all six episodes. We’ve worked with them before, so there was already trust there. The series was a historical drama following six real figures from World War II through the 1960s. It wove archival material together with recreated drama and jumped across locations from New Mexico and China to Russia, Israel and French Algeria.

André Gerhardt and I handled the VFX work as a two-person team, with me also covering on-set supervision on key days. Across the season, we delivered around 125 shots in total.

DP: What were the main categories of VFX work across the season?

Tobias Kummer: Most of the work fell into a handful of categories. The biggest chunk was geographic transformations and set extension work. The show was shot in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Poland, but it needed to represent locations across multiple continents, so we were constantly reshaping the world. We made the Pustynia Błędowska desert in Poland read as New Mexico in some scenes and as Israel in others. We replaced window views with believable locations and extended sets to fit both the period and the geography.

Period cleanup was the other constant. Removing anachronisms took up a steady portion of the workload, such as power lines, phone masts, wind turbines, modern signage, contemporary vehicles, basically anything that didn’t exist between the 1940s and 1960s. Some removals were straightforward paint-outs, while others required proper tracking and reconstruction for moving shots, especially given the anamorphic lens characteristics to account for.

Beyond that, there was a lot of environmental and atmospheric work. We added snow to summer shoots where winter was required, enhanced practical smoke and explosions with additional elements, and built the nuclear explosion sequence. There were also the smaller, problem-solving shots that always appeared on a show like this, including window inserts, moon replacements, damage work, retouching visible wig seams and removing on-set facilities from reflections. Many shots weren’t just one technique. A single exterior might have needed cleanup, set extension and atmos all layered in one comp.

DP: What constraints shaped the work most?

Tobias Kummer: What shaped the work was the schedule and the fact that we were a two-person team delivering an episodic shot count with rolling deadlines. Episodes moved into colour on a rolling basis, which meant we had to work sequentially and finish each episode properly before moving on to the next. We couldn’t cherry-pick shots across the whole season when we needed breathing room. There was a clear rhythm to the work. However, we had to maintain strict discipline.

“What shaped the work was the schedule, and the reality of being a two-person team delivering an episodic shot count with rolling deadlines.”

DP: How did the anamorphic photography affect VFX, especially cleanup?

Tobias Kummer: The anamorphic photography added complexity in places you might not expect. Distortion and breathing made tracking more challenging than it would have been with spherical lenses, particularly on handheld or more dynamic shots. We had everything from locked-off tripod plates to dolly moves, cranes, and handheld coverage, so even simple cleanup could have become complicated if you wanted it to sit cleanly while preserving the anamorphic feel.

DP: What did on-set supervision change for you in practical terms?

Tobias Kummer: On-set supervision helped in practical ways. Sometimes it was about making sure we had clean plates and tracking markers. At other times, it was flagging modern details before they became post problems. Or it was a small camera placement decision that saved hours of rotoscoping later. We had an initial planning phase with the DOP and directors in May 2023, and on-set supervision ran through the shoot from May to July.

Then there was a long gap. We didn’t receive VFX plates until May 2024, nearly a year after wrapping, because production was working through the edit in the meantime. That delay reinforced something I always try to stress. Write everything down during on-set supervision. No matter how certain you are that you’ll remember something, you won’t a year later. Good notes made it possible to pick the work up again without having to guess.

DP: How did the schedule work once plates started arriving?

Tobias Kummer: Once plates started arriving, we had roughly two weeks per episode, regardless of complexity. VFX production ran for over 12 weeks across the six episodes. Shot complexity varied widely. Some cleanups were quick, while sequences with multiple iterations took longer, but the template system helped. The first shot of a new type might have taken time to establish the approach, but similar shots afterwards moved much faster.

Approvals were efficient. Most shots were approved in versions 1 or 2, and only a handful needed additional revisions. When revisions did happen, they were usually about creative direction rather than technical fixes, which came back to communication and understanding intent early.

DP: How did you split responsibilities as a two-person team?

Tobias Kummer: André and I divided the work in a clear way, but we kept shot ownership flexible. I handled on-set supervision, project planning, client communication and pipeline setup, and I also did shot work as well. André focused on shot execution and handled the motion graphics. We didn’t rigidly assign shot types. It was more fluid. Whoever was free took the next thing that needed doing. Because we were working remotely, communication was essential. We stayed connected throughout the day, and if one of us got stuck, a quick call and a screen share often solved what might have taken hours otherwise in minutes.

DP: What did you use for project management?

Tobias Kummer: For project management, we used Ramses by RxLaboratory. That was our central truth for what was in progress, what was out for review, and what was approved.

I wanted to avoid the usual folder wrangling that came with episodic work, so I built a small Fusion plugin that connected directly to the Ramses API. In practice, it meant that when you opened a shot, the setup was already done. Correct plates, correct naming, correct version number, correct saver paths, and comp settings that matched the show spec. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it prevented mistakes and kept us moving. Templates were the other foundation. I kept them rigid where mistakes were expensive and flexible where a shot needed freedom.

DP: Can you break down the plate specs and colour pipeline?

Tobias Kummer: Plates came from Avid as 4K MXF containers in DNxHR HQX 12-bit with a 1.8 anamorphic squeeze, in ARRI Wide Gamut 4 and LogC4.
We composited in scene-referred linear, so the input linearisation was standardised. Output was standardised too. For review, we rendered previews in Rec.709 using the client reference LUT, so the work looked close to the intended look. Finals went out in ARRI Wide Gamut 4 and LogC4 so the grade could treat VFX shots like any other plate. The LUTs were helpful for context, but we couldn’t bake them into the finals without limiting the colourist’s downstream options.

DP: Why Fusion Studio, and what tools mattered most?

Tobias Kummer: All compositing happened in Fusion Studio, because it was what we knew and because the node-based approach was genuinely flexible under episodic revision pressure. When notes came back, you could restructure a comp non-destructively. Insert processing, reroute parts of the tree, try alternatives, without rebuilding from scratch.

Fusion’s tracker and planar tracker held up well on the anamorphic plates, which mattered for both cleanup and set extension work on moving shots. Magic Mask helped as well. It wasn’t perfect in every case, but it saved us more than once from manual roto. We supplemented with a handful of Reactor tools and some custom tools we’d built, but the aim was to rely on Fusion’s core toolset and maintain a consistent pipeline for broadcast delivery.

We also used Blender for 3D elements and set extension geometry, EmberGen for pyro and atmospheric simulations, SynthEyes for more complex camera solves and Affinity Photo for detailed paint work. All rendering was done locally rather than on a farm, which gave us more control and faster iteration.

DP: Pick one shot that best represented the season. What was it, and how did you approach it?

Tobias Kummer: If I had to pick one shot that summed up the work, it was a vast desert establishing shot where we turned the Polish Pustynia Błędowska into an Israeli desert landscape. The plate was shot on a crane mount, so there was a slight shake, and the camera racked focus between foreground and background. In the original plate, you could see the forest at the edges of the location, which didn’t sell the intended geography at all.

This was a case where on-set supervision paid off. Had we gone with the initial framing, we would have had the actors’ heads and the car crossing the horizon line, which would have meant rotoscoping them out to replace the background. I asked for a slight adjustment to the camera placement so everything stayed below the horizon. That saved hours of roto later and made the background replacement much cleaner.

In Fusion Studio, we used a few point tracks to stabilise and reapply the move, and we paid close attention to the rack focus because anamorphic lenses can shift and breathe, causing the background to drift if you ignore it. We built a matte painting from Israeli desert reference photos for the mountainous backdrop. We added blowing sand using an EmberGen simulation we had created and reused across multiple desert shots, and we added heat haze with a simple Fast Noise feeding a Displace node. The focus rack was matched by hand with keyframes. The shot was approved in version two.

DP: What were the key lessons you took from delivering this as a small team?

Tobias Kummer: If I had to distil it down to what kept us on time while maintaining quality, it came down to a few habits. First, learn some scripting, Python or whatever your tools support, and automate the repetitive, error-prone parts of the job. The time savings compounded quickly, especially for a small team, and you don’t need to build for massive scale to benefit.

Second, organise everything and document it. When you’re juggling episodes, you can’t waste time on version mix-ups or folder hunting, and the year gap between shoot and plate delivery made that even more important. Lastly, don’t waste time being stuck. Fresh eyes solved problems faster and a quick screen share could save hours. And honestly, sometimes the best decision was to stop and sleep. If you weren’t making progress, you’d often solve it faster in the morning.

The post A World Divided: Shaping a Global WWII Epic at Overmind Studios first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Kraken is a Norwegian sci-fi thriller that moves between majestic fjord landscapes, industrial fish farms, studio interiors, LED-volume stages and CG-heavy underwater sequences. From a grading perspective, the main challenge was maintaining visual continuity while allowing each environment to retain its own identity.

The main priority for senior colourist Dylan Hopkin was establishing a strong, consistent foundational look across the film. “A good grade always serves the story and characters first,” he says. “What I do should be almost invisible. My colouring shouldn’t draw attention to itself.” Before the main grade began, Hopkin worked on teasers and the main trailer, a process that helped the team prepare for the actual movie, he explains. “But teasers and trailers are commercials for the film. The looks don’t always translate directly once you see scenes in their full context.”

Hopkin walks through a selection of scenes from the film, explaining how he approached colour, contrast and continuity, and how DaVinci Resolve was used to solve specific creative and technical challenges.

A bit about Kraken

Kraken (2026) is a Norwegian monster action feature directed by Pål Øie and produced by Nordisk Film Production AS, with Handmade Films in Norwegian Woods also credited on IMDb. It was shot on location around the Sognefjord and included studio work in Finland.

The story follows marine biologist Johanne, sent to investigate a salmon farm near Vangsnes after two teenagers die and strange phenomena suggest something huge is moving in the fjord depths.

Establishing a foundational look for Kraken

The main weight of the grade was creating a robust foundational look, which effectively became a bespoke show LUT implemented as a fixed node tree. From there, I focused on what each image already had to offer. I looked at dominant hues, how practical light flowed through the frame, what the most important part of the image was, and what the director and DP wanted the audience to feel. From that analysis, I usually get a gut feeling for how to adapt the image.

I try to be as respectful as possible towards the cinematography. What’s captured in front of the lens creates the DNA of the look. Creating appropriate tonal contrast so images sit right is a big part of grading. I do that using custom curves, DCTLs or different DRTs in Resolve, depending on the material. Shaping light is also critical. I rely heavily on windows, tracking and Magic Mask [more on which later] to guide the audience’s eye, in much the same way as dodge-and-burn techniques in still photography.

Maintaining continuity across scenes

This is one of the most challenging aspects of grading. I prefer to choose as few reference images as possible per scene and match everything else against them.

It’s also important to commit to a consistent set of tools. I often use colour-space-aware tools for exposure and white balance, such as Resolve’s HDR Grade tool, because the maths is very clean and respects the source material. Another approach I use is working in linear gamma with gain for exposure and white balance. The key is consistency.

Once shot-by-shot balancing is done, I use the Group Post-Clip node tree for scene-wide corrections. On Kraken, colour management was handled manually in a DaVinci YRGB project using nodes and input DCTLs. For animated features, I usually prefer ACEScct, but for live action, I still like a more hands-on approach.

Fjord landscapes

For the fjord exteriors, the goal was to keep foliage and skies natural but present. I relied heavily on the Tetra2 DCTL by Juanjo L. Salazar to tweak foliage hues, with very clean results. I also used the ColorSlice tool to add subtle density to greens without flattening highlights. Cloud texture in the skies was preserved through contrast control rather than saturation.

Kraken is the first Scandinavian feature film to be graded in Dolby Vision for theatrical release! For this additional version, Hopkin graded two days on Resolve with an advanced panel in Dolby’s reference theatre in London’s Soho. “It was an amazing experience: next level cinema,” says Hopkin.

Fish farm control room

The fish farm control room needed to feel grimy and industrial, in contrast to the high-tech control screens. It was shot in a studio with exterior views created using an LED volume, allowing precise control of time-of-day lighting while maintaining accurate reflections.

After establishing the base look, I added a subtle amount of green using primary offsets, similar to printer lights. That small adjustment added grit and helped sell the environment.

Fish farm exteriors: day and night

The fish farm exteriors had a weathered, oily quality with plenty of patina. Daylight scenes were graded with softer contrast and a colder Nordic feel.

At night, sodium vapour lighting dominated. I pushed the blacks deeper to add more bite and reinforce the industrial mood.

Kraken Underwater sequences and transitions

Underwater shots varied significantly, combining live action, CG, day-for-night and fully stylised sequences. Most daylight underwater scenes leaned green-cyan, while nighttime scenes moved more towards blue.

There were exceptions. During the nighttime kraken attack, surface lighting mixed strong sodium vapour with cooler sources. When submerged and looking up, I pushed highlights towards orange to connect the underwater shots to the surface action.

For shots moving between above and below the surface, I used keyframed grades in dynamic nodes to animate colour transitions. The HDR Grade tool, offset controls and hue-vs-hue curves were central here.

Submerged luxury restaurant

The submerged luxury restaurant was shot in a studio using an LED volume. I compressed the colour palette slightly using hue-vs-hue, managed saturated skin tones with hue-vs-sat, and controlled saturation depth with ColorSlice. The aim was restraint, keeping the environment immersive without overpowering performance.

In the restaurant, some wide shots suffered from LED moiré. I analysed which colour channels were affected and used a splitter-combiner node structure with Color Compressor, Debanding OFX and subtle directional blur, applied via qualifiers and masks.

Fish farm attack and fog

During the early evening fish farm attack, the Scandinavian light was at its best. I added subtle warmth along horizon lines and introduced fog behind Johanne using Cinematic Haze OFX.

I used Resolve’s masking tools and planar tracker to lock haze masks in place, excluding mountain silhouettes with HSL qualifiers. In total, I added fog and haze to around 40 shots.

In one canoe sequence, several shots lacked fog entirely. I tested Cinematic Haze, showed the results to the director, DP and producers, and ended up completing the remaining shots.

I like the control Cinematic Haze offers: finding the right depth-map sweet spot first, then adjusting airlight, density and resolution loss.

Laboratory bioluminescence

In the lab scenes, a green bioluminescent liquid needed to feel more prominent. I qualified the bioluminescence, added Add Flicker OFX for a smooth pulse, and used ColorSlice to push subtractive saturation into the green hue.

Red alert and the nighttime finale of Kraken

The red-alert sequence marked a deliberate escalation. This was the first nighttime attack on the fish farm, and the images needed to feel crisper and more aggressive than earlier scenes. Saturation increased due to intense red warning lights, but it was important to keep those colours under control. I relied on the Sat-vs-Sat curve to keep the reds vivid without tipping into a digital look, with gamut-mapping used where appropriate.

In the nighttime finale, Johanne leaves the fish farm by boat before the sequence cuts to day-for-night material. From that point on, the scene had to be transformed into a believable nighttime environment with a softer Scandinavian summer-night feel. I used Resolve’s HDR Grade tool for most of the heavy lifting and introduced a warm sodium-vapour tone to maintain a visual link to the fish farm. Tracked masks and Magic Mask helped preserve detail in Johanne’s performance while keeping the environment dark and moody.

Magic Mask and selective grading

Magic Mask has changed the way I work. Tasks like face relighting used to rely on tracked windows or rotoscoping, which could easily introduce halos. Magic Mask can select faces, clothing, vehicles and more with minimal setup. It’s not perfect every time, but with some tweaking, it solves complex selections efficiently. On Kraken, I used it extensively for relighting faces, isolating creatures and excluding actors from background colour manipulations, often in combination with keyers and windows.

Camera shake and lightweight VFX

In several action scenes, the DP Sjur Aarthun, wanted additional camera shake to increase impact. Solving this during the grade is far quicker than sending shots back to VFX. I used Camera Shake OFX for constant vibrations, and custom Fusion setups with damped-spring expressions for impact shakes, always with motion blur enabled. Working in Resolve allowed real-time review and better control over the scene’s flow.

Dylan Hopkin (IMDB | LinkedIn | Website) is a senior colourist based at one of Europe’s leading post-production facilities, Nordisk Film ShortCut Oslo, with more than a decade of experience specialising in high-end creative colour grading for feature films, TV dramas and commercials. He originally trained as a motion graphics designer before transitioning into finishing and online work.

Hopkin’s credits span award-winning cinema and television projects showcased internationally at festivals such as Sundance, Cannes Series, Tribeca and the Oscars circuit. He is also a certified DaVinci Resolve trainer, has created masterclasses on grading strategies and teaches at film schools across Europe.

The post Grading Kraken: insights from the colour grade first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

AFX Camera Tagger addresses a very specific but recurring problem in multicamera editing inside DaVinci Resolve. The application’s multicam creation dialogue allows editors to synchronise clips by timecode, waveform, or other methods, and to automatically detect camera angles. That angle detection depends on correctly assigned camrea tags in the clip metadata.

If those tags are missing, Resolve treats each clip as a separate angle. The result is not a clean multicam stack but a staircase of individual tracks, each containing a single clip. For editors handling concerts, interviews or live events with double-digit camera counts, that is not a minor inconvenience.

AFX Camera Tagger automates the assignment of Camera metadata, removing the need to tag clips manually in the Media Pool – for free.

Why tags matter

In Resolve, multicam creation is straightforward. Editors select their clips, choose the option to create a new multicam clip, define a sync method and enable camera angle detection. The angle detection relies on the Camera field in clip metadata. If clips share identical camera tags per angle, Resolve groups them correctly. Without tags, or if angle detection is disabled, each clip is placed on a separate track. The resulting timeline is technically functional but operationally inefficient.

Tags themselves are flexible. They can be any string, provided each camera angle is assigned a distinct value. The system does not enforce a specific naming convention. However, manual tagging becomes tedious in productions with frequent multicam setups or high clip counts.

Two tagging modes

AFX Camera Tagger provides two workflow modes. The first is based on bins, the second on file names.

In the From Bins mode, users select a main folder containing sub-bins with camera clips. After invoking a bin scan, the script lists available bins. A command labelled Set camera from bin names assigns Camera metadata based on the specified bin names. This approach suits ingest structures where each camera angle is organised into its own folder.

The script supports recursive processing, which automatically handles nested folders. According to the developer, deeply nested folder structures are processed without manual intervention. This is relevant for larger productions where DITs deliver structured Media Pools with multiple levels.

The second mode, From Clip Names, addresses the common scenario where all clips reside in a single bin but follow distinct naming patterns per camera. Users select clips in the Media Pool, specify which portion of the file name to parse, and preview detected camera angles before applying them.

The preview step reveals how many unique angles the selected name range produces. If the range is too narrow, the script may detect fewer angles than expected. Adjusting the selected character range corrects this. Once confirmed, the Set camera from clip names function writes the tags to the metadata.

This parsing approach depends entirely on consistent file naming. The tool does not claim to analyse image content, timecode or embedded metadata beyond the Camera field. It strictly operates on folder names or file name substrings.

Metadata handling and safety

AFX Camera Tagger writes to the Camera metadata field. If clips already contain camera tags, users can avoid overwriting them by enabling the relevant protection option. A Clear camera checkbox allows the removal of existing Camera tags from selected clips. Once assigned, tags persist with the clips throughout the project and work with every subsequent multicam synchronisation. The script does not advertise any background services or external dependencies. It operates within Resolve’s scripting environment.

Batch tagging is described as capable of handling hundreds of clips in seconds. The developer does not publish benchmark data. Performance, therefore, depends on project size and system configuration.

Studio requirement

AFX Camera Tagger requires DaVinci Resolve Studio from version 19.1 onwards. It is not compatible with the free edition from that version. Resolve scripting capabilities are typically tied to Studio features. The script is completely free and available for download from Art FX. An installation manual is included in English and Polish.

Practical implications for editors

For editors who regularly build multicam timelines, the tool addresses a narrow but real friction point. Manually entering camera tags via the Metadata panel is straightforward but repetitive. In larger projects, this can become a preventable source of error. The script’s value lies in its ability to map existing organisational logic, folder structure or file naming conventions onto Resolve’s Camera metadata field. It does not introduce new sync methods or alter multicam functionality. It simply ensures that the existing system works as intended.

The functionality is particularly relevant in workflows where assistants prepare Media Pools before the editor begins cutting. Automated tagging reduces prep time and minimises human error in repetitive data entry.

What it does not claim

AFX Camera Tagger does not claim to perform automatic camera detection based on image analysis. It does not claim to modify timecode, reel names or scene metadata. It does not advertise integration with external asset management systems. Its scope is limited to setting or clearing the Camera metadata field based on folder or file name patterns. Within that scope, the workflow appears clear and intentionally minimal.

That simplicity is likely its main strength. It solves one problem while leaving the rest unchanged.

As with any new tool in a professional environment, editors and post supervisors should test functionality, performance and metadata behaviour before deploying it in production pipelines. New tools and innovations should always be tested before production use.

// https://www.art-fx.eu/l/aizbi?layout=profile

The post AFX Camera Tagger sorts your Resolve multicam chaos first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.