Best workflow: Premiere - After Effects - Davinci

[Mikko Suomalainen]

I'm wondering what would be the best workflow for RED-footage with this setup:

Basic editing: Premiere CS 5.5
Effects: After effects CS 5.5
Color grading: Davinci Resolve Lite

Do I loose the 4K quality using the Resolve Lite? How should I export the footage from Premiere to AE, and then to Davinci, still having the RAW-footage, and that I can render out all the effects?
Or should I do the grading first, and send it to AE after Davinci?

Thank you in advance
Mikko

 

[JeanChristophe Dupasquier]

kinda same question here.

I have the same question here, just with Premiere Pro & After Effects CC 2014 and DaVinci Resolve 11.
What's the best workflow for grading After Effects comps with the most resolution and color information (RedLogFilm!) possible? I guess it's not possible to use the .r3d files for shots that were edited in AE, right? That's actually where Adobe Speedgrade really shines

 

[Matthew Mann]

Hey Mikko,
I haven't used CS5.5 in quite some time, so I'm not fresh on the exact workflow, but most versions of CS I remember using has Adobe Dynamic Link. Dynamic link allows you to send files from Premiere to AE and vice versa. In the latest versions, you can right click on a clip and send it to After Effects, then see the effects go live in your Premiere timeline. I have not clue how far along that feature was in 5.5, however but check to see if there is something comparable there. Once you export out of AE, all of your post-effect video will be baked to RGB, so make sure you have good white balance, exposure, etc. before you start doing your effects in AE. Unless Resolve Lite changed their features recently, I believe you can only master to 1080p out of Lite

Here's how I would process your footage:
* Get your edit to a picture lock in Premiere
* Make sure you do any RAW color adjustments necessary such as White Balance, FLUT, etc. to any clips that you are going to work with in AE
* If you're using dynamic link (might require newer version of CS), the completed shots should automatically link from AE to Premiere. If not, round trip your effects shots using 16 bit DPX or a similar file back to Premiere.
* Once you have your final VFX in your Premiere project, move the project to Resolve for final grading/mastering

 

[T_Freundlich]

Yep, as far as I can tell, there's no way to make that specific three-way roundtrip without losing the R3D native connection between AE and Resolve. Premiere directly to Resolve is easy because all you need to do is export a FCP XML, bring your footage into Resolve, and import the XML.

I've tried the Dynamic Link feature once or twice but in my opinion it's a lovely idea that's not very useful in practice. First off, it makes your Premiere and AE sequences and compositions very complicated; secondly, it's so performance-intensive that it doesn't seem to work properly on anything except extremely simple AE comps. Last time I tried it was on an older Mac Pro (not my current editing machine) though, so your results may vary depending on your system horsepower...

Here's how I would process your footage:
* Get your edit to a picture lock in Premiere
* Make sure you do any RAW color adjustments necessary such as White Balance, FLUT, etc. to any clips that you are going to work with in AE
* If you're using dynamic link (might require newer version of CS), the completed shots should automatically link from AE to Premiere. If not, round trip your effects shots using 16 bit DPX or a similar file back to Premiere.
* Once you have your final VFX in your Premiere project, move the project to Resolve for final grading/mastering

This sounds workable. However, you could also do it the other way around as you suggest - grade first and then do your VFX on the graded footage (whether this makes sense depends a lot on what kind of effects you need – and for what percentage of your clips):

1. Edit in Premiere to picture lock
2. Export FCP XML, import and conform this in Resolve
3. Grade in Resolve, export high-quality intermediate files for the clips needing VFX in final mastering resolution and format of your choice
4. Import the files needing VFX into AE, export new final versions of these clips
5. Make a new copy of your Resolve timeline, replace the VFX'ed clips with the final versions, export final deliverable file.

Of course, this also assumes that you do your titles etc. in Resolve (personally I much prefer to roundtrip back to Premiere for the final mastering as I love Resolve for grading but the titling in Premiere is much easier).

 

[Matthew Mann]

Yep, as far as I can tell, there's no way to make that specific three-way roundtrip without losing the R3D native connection between AE and Resolve. Premiere directly to Resolve is easy because all you need to do is export a FCP XML, bring your footage into Resolve, and import the XML.

I've tried the Dynamic Link feature once or twice but in my opinion it's a lovely idea that's not very useful in practice. First off, it makes your Premiere and AE sequences and compositions very complicated; secondly, it's so performance-intensive that it doesn't seem to work properly on anything except extremely simple AE comps. Last time I tried it was on an older Mac Pro (not my current editing machine) though, so your results may vary depending on your system horsepower...



This sounds workable. However, you could also do it the other way around as you suggest - grade first and then do your VFX on the graded footage (whether this makes sense depends a lot on what kind of effects you need – and for what percentage of your clips):

1. Edit in Premiere to picture lock
2. Export FCP XML, import and conform this in Resolve
3. Grade in Resolve, export high-quality intermediate files for the clips needing VFX in final mastering resolution and format of your choice
4. Import the files needing VFX into AE, export new final versions of these clips
5. Make a new copy of your Resolve timeline, replace the VFX'ed clips with the final versions, export final deliverable file.

Of course, this also assumes that you do your titles etc. in Resolve (personally I much prefer to roundtrip back to Premiere for the final mastering as I love Resolve for grading but the titling in Premiere is much easier).

Under most circumstances, as in 99.999% of circumstances, I would definitely avoid doing VFX after the grade, as you'll want your grade to apply to the VFX. For instance, doing a chroma key after your grade will likely throw off your color key. Additionally, if you add anything in your VFX process, like a matte painting, etc etc, you will not have your grade applied to the added visual elements and you will creative a major visual disparity between your inputted footage and the effects you add. This issue applies to any visual effect.. everything from mattes, to muzzle flashes, to full on CGI, you want the graded look to apply to all of your footage to give the illusion your effects physically exist in the same world as what has been captured in-camera.

In the newest CC versions of PrPro, they allow you transcode your dynamic link AE footage in Premiere to DPX, however I don't think that was available in legacy versions.

 

[Will Steer]

I would use the Resolve timeline as your online timeline and do all exports - including final master and titles - from there. I would use Premiere as I like the titling in Premiere, but it's not colour managed.

In Resolve, make sure Red files are set to decode as RedLogFilm. Export *just* the VFX shots as either 10-bit DPX or 16-bit TIFF sequences, 2K or 4K depending on what you want.

Normally when I work in After Effects I use the built in colour management, however, that could end up baking a limited colour gamut into your RedLogFilm file when you do the final export, so I'd use of LUT instead: http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/utility-effects.html

You can use a RedLogFilm to Rec709 LUT (there isn't a standard one like the Arri Log one but there are several people on this forum that have produced one) or one that more closely represents your grade export from Resolve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKcj3oXlHm4

Importantly, do all your VFX *underneath* the LUT layer then remove the LUT before you export. Export in the same format of image sequence you imported with, then import that into Resolve. In the edit page, select the original clip in the timeline and the new clip in the media pool, right click and select 'force conform'.

Then you'll have a VFX clip that can be graded with almost the flexibility of an R3D in Resolve.

 

[T_Freundlich]

Very valid points, thanks Matthew & Will.

I would use the Resolve timeline as your online timeline and do all exports - including final master and titles - from there. I would use Premiere as I like the titling in Premiere, but it's not colour managed.

I always just assumed that if you grade something in Resolve, bring it back into Premiere and then re-export for a final deliverable (without doing any additional adjustments on the material), it wouldn't have any effect on the colors. Am I missing a nuance in here somewhere?

 

[JeanChristophe Dupasquier]

Thanks everyone, that's very helpful!
Would this also work?
- Edit in Premiere Pro
- Dynamic Link to AE for some shots
- VFX/comp/titles "under" a LUT in AE
- Render out AE comps to 10-bit DPX or 16-bit TIFF (no LUT applied, RedLogFilm), conform in PP
- XML to Resolve, Color Grading and final export

Depending on the project I will be coloring after the editor and VFX artist has already done everything in Adobe PP/AE, so working in reverse will not always be possible. Looks like there's no other way than losing the .R3Ds in Resolve for the shots edited in AE, will have to live with that I guess

 

[Will Steer]

Thanks everyone, that's very helpful!
Would this also work?
- Edit in Premiere Pro
- Dynamic Link to AE for some shots
- VFX/comp/titles "under" a LUT in AE
- Render out AE comps to 10-bit DPX or 16-bit TIFF (no LUT applied, RedLogFilm), conform in PP
- XML to Resolve, Color Grading and final export

Depending on the project I will be coloring after the editor and VFX artist has already done everything in Adobe PP/AE, so working in reverse will not always be possible. Looks like there's no other way than losing the .R3Ds in Resolve for the shots edited in AE, will have to live with that I guess

Sounds smart, takes the hassle out of conforming in Resolve for sure. For the VFX shots, you'll have to loose the R3Ds, yep. As long as they work in RedLogFilm and don't bake anything other than the VFX into the image sequence they give you, you'll probably end up with about 90% of the image flexibility you would have had anyway (maybe just make sure they white balance the RedLogFilm before it goes into AE... I think that's the only danger with a non-colourist handling that part of the process).

 

[Tommy Friedman]

what about a more complex timeline?

what about a more complex timeline?

After reading the thread I wanted to ask about a more complex timeline. I have a feature-length project where maybe 25% of the clips are modified in some way using an AE effect (for simple things like skin smoothing and keying). I couldn't imagine having done this with Dynamic Link since we did it on probably 250 clips.

The master timeline is in AE and I want to send it to Resolve. What's the best way to do this? A lot of forums suggest moving the project into Premiere, but that would sacrifice so many simple AE effects in the process.

Thanks for your input,
T