Color TurnoverHere’s the plan, Stan. The ins and outs. The scheme (if you’re English). This is our preferred method of receiving the edit you’ve slaved over for weeks or months. Making sure that we get everything we need helps ensure a smooth finish to your film.Footage TransferWe have plenty of fast shared storage on our multiple NASs in the studio. Please get the footage to us well ahead of your color bookings. That way we can load all the footage and have it ready to rock!

1. USB 3 hard drives are preferred. Thunderbolt acceptable. Mac or PC formatted. 
   
2. For smaller scale jobs, uploading the footage to a cloud service is a viable option. This option is dependent on your internet speed.
   
3. All original camera footage in the camera directory structure (i.e., not transcoded or changed in any way from how they came off the camera). Trimmed camera originals are acceptable but please consult with us about your workflow first. 
   Pinto should at no point be the only place where the original camera dailies are stored.
   
4. If transcoded files were used in edit, include a separate directory containing transcoded dailies for use in the offline edit. All transcoded dailies must maintain the frame rate and time code of the original footage. Transcoded dailies do not need to follow the same directory structure as the raw camera files. 
   
5. Other visual media used (graphics, VFX, stock footage, etc,). Sending these is especially important if Pinto is also providing final mastering for the project.
   
6. Include show LUTs
   
7. Do not use ASCII forbidden characters in directory or file names   \ / : * ? " < > |
   

Prepping the TimelineBelow are steps for prepping the timeline to send to color grade.

1. Duplicate timeline. Label “colorprep”
   
2. Condense video tracks to as few as possible
   
3. Place graphics on a higher separate track 
   
4. Unused clips removed
   
5. Multicam clips flattened
   
6. Remove any temp color effects
   
7. Leave sizing and positioning changes in place
   
8. Remove all audio
   
9. Speed Ramps i.e. dynamic speed changes - Premiere poorly handles speed ramps when round tripping. If speed ramps are used, please export to a high quality format (PR4444) as a standalone clip and re-import into your timeline placing that media on a track above the original.
   Static speed changes can be left in place, i.e. changing the whole clip speed to 75% or 50%.     
   

Export the Timeline

1. Export an XML (Premiere, FCPX), AAF (AVID), DRT (Resolve) or EDL (old school) export
   
2. Premiere labels XML “Final Cut Pro XML” in the Export menu.
   
3. It’s also useful to send an EDL for each video track. Label them accordingly.
   
4. Send the editorial project, especially if edited in Premiere - This is optional but can be helpful in problem solving.
   

Export a Reference MovieA reference is simply an export of the film so we can match all the shots and shot sizing in DaVinci Resolve. It is our visual guide to what the film should look like.
There are 2 types of reference movies: a film reference and a color reference. A film reference is your film! It’s simply an export of your edit timeline. A color reference is used if the new colorprep timeline doesn’t exactly match the film timeline. This happens when removing time ramping and also with complex composites.
The reference movie needs to match your editorial timeline exactly. If any changes were made since the last export was created, please create a new reference.
On the reference movie please include window burn that displays source timecode and clip names. We do not need to see the overall timeline timecode. You can easily do this in Adobe Premiere using an adjustment layer with the “timecode” and “clip name” effects.
**** Please consult with us if any of the above is unclear ****