Learn DaVinci Resolve Color Correction at BAVC Media with David Santamaria

Published On: October 1, 2018 |
Learn Da Vinci Resolve Color Correction at BAVC

BAVC Media has partnered with Black Magic Design to teach DaVinci Resolve Intro and DaVinci Resolve Color Correction as part of our video and audio postproduction offerings. BAVC Media Instructor, David Santamariasat down with Mindy Aronoff from BAVC Media to discuss why DaVinci Resolve is such an important tool.

Check out our upcoming DaVinci Resolve Color Correction class on February 15th & 16th or April 26th & 27th and DaVinci Resolve: Introduction on March 8th & 9th!


Why is Black Magic Design so hot right now? 

Black Magic has gotten involved with every aspect of filmmaking. DaVinci Resolve, their postproduction software, has no equal right now.  With the release of Davinci Resolve 15 software, there’s professional editing, audio, motion graphics, color and encoding in one software. They just released Black Magic RAW codec which greatly ups their cameras integration into Post-production.  They make very solid pro-end cameras for less than $6,000 that are sometimes being used in place of Cameras that cost over $35,000.

 

Doesn’t Adobe Premiere Pro do everything Resolve does?

No. Premiere is an editing program.  DaVinci has professional, editing, audio, motion graphics and the industry standard color correction software all built into one application.   As an editing program, they both have great things about them.  They are both very solid editing programs, but with Premiere, you have to go to outside to finish color, audio and motion graphics professionally. There’s integration with those outside applications, but it’s not the same as doing it all inside one application.  As editing software, I would add that Premiere is a little less intuitive. The default preferences are very poorly set-up. There are many things I really like about Premiere Pro and Adobe has worked very hard to improve the application and it shows.  One other thing, Premiere Pro is cloud-based and available for about $29.99 per month. Davinci Resolve is free or $300.

 

I can download a free version of DaVinci Resolve — why would I purchase a license?

The free version offers a lot of professional tools. For a very reasonable one time cost of $299, though, you get full support professional sharing over a server, 4k, great advanced filters for pro tasks like noise reduction and skin softening. You also get full support for stereoscopic workflows.

 

What are some of the cool things you can do with DaVinci Resolve?

That’s impossible to answer without writing a book, but I’ll mention some things that it does that you can’t do in any other editing program.

  • Auto scene cut entire baked together movies so that you can do further work on them even if they no longer exist as individual tracks in a project.
  • Auto-sync batches of clips which Premiere can not do.
  • Do complex bus stem outputs which you have to go outside of Premiere to Audition to do.
  • Do point, cloud and planar motion tracking of clips.
  • Color Correct films something close to light years beyond the other editing systems.

Is DaVinci Resolve being adopted by professional editors?

That’s one for Black Magic Design.  I can only say that professional editors should be adopting it.

 

What about BMD cameras? How do they compare to a Canon DSLR, for example?

The BMD cameras are cinema cameras with professional sound and now with their own RAW codec to offer better post-integration.  A more accurate comparison would be the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro for $6,000 with the Canon EOS C200 Cinema Camera

 

Do you think companies will want to hire editors familiar with DaVinci Resolve? If so, why?

YES!

The tools inside of DaVinci Resolve are top of the line. It’s very intuitive for such a deep professional software.  Right now the only thing lacking is editors trained to know how to use them. There are a number of colorists who know the program, but because they first built an industry standard color correction program and have now built a professional editing and everything else around it, it will take a while to make that move.

 

How hard is it to learn DaVinci Resolve if you are an intermediate Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro X user?

Overall, very reasonable.  I would first add that if you are a former Final Cut Pro 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 user, this is the moment, because DaVinci Resolve is the closest thing to what would Final Cut Pro 8 would have been if Apple had continued on that track (pun somewhat intended) and much much more .

It looks a little like Final Cut Pro X, but functions more like Premiere Pro since it is a track based editing program.  You can learn and learn this software for years, but the basics to edit a project are easier to learn then Premiere.  I have an older producer friend who sometimes edits and he was pretty good with Final Cut 7. His team uses Premiere Pro, and he tried Final Cut Pro X for his own projects and just got lost. I told him to try DaVinci instead and a couple of days later he wrote back and said, “It’s great. Very smart interface. There’s a few bugs, but it’s actually a very pleasing editing tool. Can’t thank you enough for turning me on to it.” That was back in the 14 version and Black Magic has come a long way since then.

 

What’s your favorite feature of DaVinci Resolve?

By far, the full integration of everything a post-production team would need to professionally edit and finish a film.