Grades at scale

IntermediateDuration ~20 min video + 45 min hands-onTools DaVinci Resolve (free)

Why this lesson

Up to now you’ve graded one clip at a time. On a real timeline — an interview with ten takes, a scene with forty shots — that’s slow and, worse, inconsistent: tweak the look and you’re re-doing it forty times. Professionals grade the timeline as a system. They fix a correction once and let it flow to every shot that needs it, and they keep the whole project adjustable so a late note (“warmer overall”) is a one-move change, not a day of rework. This lesson is the architecture that makes that possible: groups, shared nodes, stills and PowerGrades, and the portable CDL.

Watch

Watch for: The whole video hinges on one decision. Watch how adding a clip to a group gives you two new node tabs — group pre-clip and group post-clip — and how the presenter uses Resolve's order of operations to decide which. He puts a shared primary (a blue gamma push, more contrast) on the A-camera group PRE-clip, then shot-matches each take at the clip level on top of it. Later he builds a black-and-white sepia LOOK on a 'dance' group POST-clip, so it sits over every shot at once — then fixes one too-bright clip at the clip level without disturbing the group. That pre-versus-post logic is the core skill.

The explainer

The mental shift is from “grade this clip” to “grade this timeline.” Four tools get you there.

Group grades. Right-click a clip’s thumbnail → Add into a new group (or an existing one), and a chain icon marks every clip in that group. Grouped clips gain two extra node tabs on top of the usual Clip and Timeline tabs: group pre-clip and group post-clip. The choice between them is pure order-of-operations. Resolve processes corrections in a fixed order, and a group grade lets you insert shared work either before or after each clip’s own grade. Put a shared primary correction in pre-clip — as the video does with the A-camera group — so that per-clip work (shot matching, secondaries) happens on top of a common baseline. Put a creative look in post-clip so it sits over the whole group as a final layer, with per-clip tweaks underneath it. The presenter’s rule of thumb: pre-clip for “make these all start the same,” post-clip for “make these all end the same.” He even uses a Smart Bin (“Interviews, no group”) and the light box to group large edits fast.

Shared nodes. A shared node is one node instance that can appear in many places at once; adjust it anywhere and every appearance updates together. It’s the answer to “I need the exact same window-and-key on every product shot” — build it once, share it, and a later change propagates everywhere. This is distinct from Resolve’s remote versus local versions (from the 36 Settings segment): a remote version is shared across matching clips, a local version breaks a clip off to grade it alone. Between groups, shared nodes, and versions you rarely repeat yourself.

Stills and PowerGrades. As you learned in Level 1, grabbing a still into the gallery stores the entire node tree. At scale that gallery becomes your library: Apply Grade drops a stored look onto a new clip, and a PowerGrade (a still saved in the special PowerGrade album) travels between projects. The Advanced Color video shows the DRX round-trip — export a grade as a .drx file and re-import it elsewhere — so a house look can move from job to job.

CDL. A CDL (Color Decision List) is a tiny, standardized correction: slope, offset and power per channel, plus one saturation value. It’s deliberately minimal, which is exactly why it’s portable — any color system, from an on-set tablet to Baselight, can read and write it. On set a DIT bakes a rough look as a CDL; you inherit those numbers and build on them. Keep your primary balance CDL-compatible (lift/gamma/gain/sat only, no fancy nodes) and your work can travel. You’ll meet CDLs again at production scale in Level 3’s dailies pipeline.

Tie it together with a clean, labelled node tree per clip — the architecture Darren Mostyn walks through in the node-tree talk below — so that even a big project stays readable: anyone can open a shot and see what each node does.

Do it

1. Take a multi-shot timeline with at least two “cameras” or repeated setups. Group the A-camera shots and the B-camera shots (use the light box + a Smart Bin if there are many).
2. On the A group’s pre-clip tab, do a shared primary correction. Confirm it lands on every A clip.
3. On the same group’s post-clip tab, add a simple creative look. Notice it sits over the pre-clip correction and any per-clip work.
4. Build a secondary (a window + key) on one clip, make it a shared node, and share it to another clip. Change it once; watch both update.
5. Grab your favorite grade as a PowerGrade, then Apply Grade it to a fresh clip. Finally, right-click a graded clip → Generate CDL (or export CDL) and open the file to see how small it is.

Node recipes — labelled node-tree patterns to reuse at scalenode-recipes-l1.pdf161 KBOriginal course material — free to useLevel 2 workbook — every Do it exercise, 2.1–2.12, plus the capstone (printable)level-2-workbook.pdf799 KBOriginal course material — free to use

Terms introduced

Terms introduced in this lesson

• Group grade
• Pre-clip / post-clip
• Shared node
• CDL

Each term links to the glossary, where it is defined by the way you just used it.

Check

Check yourself

1. In a group grade, what is the difference between the pre-clip and post-clip tabs?

   Pre-clip is for audio, post-clip is for videoPre-clip runs BEFORE each clip’s own grade (good for a shared correction); post-clip runs AFTER (good for a look over the whole group)They are identicalPost-clip only works on the first clip

2. You want one primary correction shared across ten interview takes, but still want to shot-match each take individually. Where does the shared correction go?

   Group pre-clip — so your per-clip matching happens on top of itGroup post-clipThe timeline tabOn each clip separately

3. What is a shared node?

   A node that shares your screenA node that can only be used onceA node that exports to another appOne node instance whose adjustment updates everywhere it appears, so you change it in one place and every copy follows

4. What makes a CDL useful across different systems?

   It is a tiny, portable correction (slope/offset/power plus saturation) that any color system can readIt is a video codecIt only works in ResolveIt stores the whole node tree with effects

Check answers

You can move on when you can… grade a whole timeline as a system — group clips and choose pre-clip vs post-clip with intent, share a node across shots, reuse a grade as a PowerGrade, and explain why a CDL is portable — instead of hand-grading every clip.

Mark this lesson complete

Go deeper

Darren Mostyn — My Perfect Node Tree (ResolveCon ’24): how a working colorist architects a clean, labelled node tree so a project stays readable at scale. The structure he lands on is worth copying.

Watch for: His per-clip node order and labelling discipline — where normalization, balance, secondaries and look each live, and why.

Blackmagic — Advanced Color (stills & grade-reuse segment): grabbing stills, Apply Grade, and the DRX export/import round-trip for reusing a grade across a project.

Segment: 50:20–57:08 — Stills, Apply Grade, DRX import/exportwatch full video

Watch for: How a stored still carries the whole tree, and the note about matching a clip before you paste a grade onto it.

Cullen Kelly — 36 Project Settings (grade-management segment): remote vs local versions and node-stack layers — the version system that complements groups and shared nodes.

Segment: 30:00–35:03 — Remote vs local versions, node-stack layerswatch full video

Watch for: When to break a clip to a local version, and how node-stack layers keep big grades organized.

Jake Pierrelee — How to use the SHARED NODE: a short focused look at shared nodes (note only a few minutes are the shared-node demo itself).

Watch for: Creating a shared node and confirming that a change in one instance updates every copy.

Next up: 2.8 · Conform & roundtrip — getting an editor’s timeline into Resolve and back out again.