multiple clips to multiple timelines in DaVinci Resolve

[stepfen]

I have another noob question about DaVinci Resolve work flow.

After a recent LoB I have about 200 "good" video files. I went through them and placed in and out markers.

Now, most if not all of them need further editing (stabilization, color correction, etc) which it seems that can't be done unless the clips get placed in a timeline.

The problem is that I want to create several timelines out of these files. For example I want:
- a short timeline/video with only (short) highlights,
- several individual clips to be shared with specific people in them,
- a timeline eg for macro,
- another for pelagics,
- a longer timeline/video with more or less everything (including all the above), etc

The logical way (to me) is to edit (stabilize, color correct etc) each clip individually and then merge the edited clips to create the timelines I want. But I can't figure out how to do this. Instead, DaVinci Resolve seems to want me first to create the timelines and then edit each clip in each timeline individually, which will result doing the same edits, on the same clips, several times!

Yes I know I can copy paste edits from one clip/timeline to another to make this faster, but there should be a neater way of doing this.

What am I missing?

Thanks a lot

 

[Pearlman]

If the in-out edit points are all going to be different for each timeline then pray how do you expect to have just a single editing effort? The only things common which you know already is that one can copy paste the stabilisation and color grading. No option but to slice and dice each clip again on each timeline…

The logical workflow is then to start the timeline with the longest clips first and then after you get the color grading and stabilisation right drag them over to the other timelines to re-edit the in-out points… This is exactly how I do it - 16x9 for YouTube then copy to a 4x5 timeline for Insta after the color grading is satisfactory. Move/pan the frame around for the 4x5 timeline to show what’s important, change the edit points, add new transitions, change the music tracks etc… sadly no choice here but redo some editing work..

 

[stepfen]

I see what you mean and of course if the clips are different (eg in-out, dimensions etc), although they might be coming from the same "raw" clip, I agree.

In my case, several clips will appear identical (with the same in-out points, color, stabilization etc ) in several timelines.

Any hope?

 

[gstrek]

I am far from a DaVinci Resolve expert but I have been learning it over the last year. I watched this YouTube video yesterday that sort of addresses some of what you are trying to do. It may have some useful hints you can work into your own workflow.

 

[Pearlman]

Stacking timelines is how I drag and drop the same clips into multiple timelines… powerbins are used for reusing common elements across multiple projects - which you don’t need here as it’s all within a single project.

Copy-paste is the way to go…

 

[TroubleBalko]

It is true, before you can stabilize, color, and FX clips they need to be in a timeline first. No way around that.

However, I wouldn't worry about this workflow of attempting to pre-stabilize and color clips. Instead, I'd say focus on editing your timelines and getting your clips trimmed and where you want them. And save the stabilization, color, and FX till last (this is standard practice in editing anyway).

Stabilization can also change depending on clip duration, sometimes for the better. So I recommend adding stabilization individually to each clip instance on each timeline. You find better results that way.

Color be can easily copied between clips, even between timelines. So as you color footage, and then work on another timeline, transferring color correction is trivial, particularly if you save your grades to the gallery.

All that said, if you really to want to pre-treat your footage, I would throw everything onto one large timeline, do the things, and then export each individual clip in the render tab, and re-import. That way you are baking everything in and editing will fly (provided you export to DNx (Windows) or ProRes (Mac)).