Conform & roundtrip

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

Why this lesson

You rarely grade the edit. Someone else cuts the film in Premiere, Final Cut or Avid, often on lightweight proxy media, and hands you a small file describing their timeline. Your job is to rebuild that exact timeline in Resolve — but linked to the full-quality camera originals — grade it, and send it back so it drops cleanly into their edit. That round trip is the backbone of professional post, and getting it wrong (a shot out of sync, a missing reframe, a color-space slip) is how a grade fails to make the deadline. This lesson is the workflow that makes the handoff reliable.

Watch

Watch for: A clean start-to-finish conform. Watch him prep bins (media / sequences / offline), import the timeline file (Ctrl-Shift-I), and point Resolve at the camera media so it rebuilds the cut. Then the part that matters most: he adds the offline reference as a special clip, links it to the sequence, and sync-checks first/middle/last frame with a reference wipe (Ctrl-W) — catching a shot that editorial had flipped, which he flops back to match. Also note the early color-space step (a CST set to his Sony S-Log3 / S-Gamut3.Cine) so he can spot big color issues while he checks sync.

The explainer

Start with the vocabulary, because the whole job is moving decisions between apps that don’t share a project file.

The editor exports an interchange file — an XML, AAF or EDL. These describe the timeline (which clip, which in/out points, what order, basic effects) without the media itself. Which one you get depends on the editor’s app: XML from Premiere and Final Cut, AAF from Avid Media Composer, and EDL — the oldest and simplest, essentially a list of cuts and timecodes — from anywhere. AAF tends to carry the most (including some effects and reframes), EDL the least.

Conforming is the act of importing that file and having Resolve relink every edit decision to the original camera media, so your color timeline is a frame-accurate rebuild of the cut. In the EDL video, the flow is: make bins, import the media, File → Import → Timeline, then point Resolve at the raw footage folder so it fills in the blanks. Resolve is good at this — it matches on timecode and reel/source name — but it isn’t magic, which is why you verify.

Verification uses an offline reference. The editor exports a single flattened QuickTime of their cut (music and all); you bring it in with Add as Offline Reference Clip (it gets a checkered-flag icon), link it to your sequence, and set the viewer’s reference mode to Offline. Now a reference wipe (Ctrl-W) shows editorial on one side and your conform on the other. Check first, middle and last frame of each shot. When they match, that shot is confirmed; when they don’t, you’ve found a discrepancy — the EDL video catches a shot editorial had flipped and flops it back; the Avid AAF walkthrough catches shots where a crop or reframe didn’t fully carry and fixes them with the sizing/inspector controls against the wipe. Do a color-space pass early (drop a Color Space Transform so the footage looks healthy) so you can eyeball color problems while you’re already checking sync.

Then you grade — and the last leg is the roundtrip: send your graded result back so it lands in the editor’s timeline. In practice that’s rendering individual graded clips (or a new timeline) and, often, media-managing the project — the Avid video shows copy and trim used media with 48-frame handles, so the editor keeps a second or two of slack on each shot for late trims without needing the whole camera drive. That handles-and-relink discipline is what lets a director “finagle a frame or two” at the end without breaking the pipeline.

Two habits keep conforms sane: set your preferences → color → cue to the middle frame (999 frames) so hitting the arrow keys jumps to a stable mid-point of each shot for checking; and never assume the conform is perfect — the wipe tells the truth, your memory doesn’t.

Do it

1. Get an interchange file (Luke Ross’s tutorial links free EDL assets; or export an XML from a short Premiere/FCP cut of your own).
2. In Resolve, make media / sequences / offline bins. Import the camera media, then File → Import → Timeline and point it at the camera folder to conform.
3. Export a flattened QuickTime of the same cut and Add as Offline Reference Clip; link it to your sequence and set reference mode to Offline.
4. Drop a CST on the first node so the footage reads correctly, then sync-check first/middle/last frame of every shot with Ctrl-W. Fix any flip, reframe or timecode mismatch you find.
5. Grade one shot, then media-manage the timeline (copy and trim used media, 48-frame handles) and note how the handles give editorial slack. That’s a roundtrip-ready deliverable.

Level 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

• Conform
• XML / AAF / EDL
• Roundtrip

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

Check

Check yourself

1. What is "conforming"?

   Making all shots the same colorAdding a creative lookExporting at broadcast levelsRebuilding the editor’s timeline in Resolve by relinking the edit decisions to the original camera media

2. Which interchange file comes from Avid Media Composer?

   PDFXMLEDLAAF

3. What is an offline reference used for during a conform?

   It is the editor’s flattened cut you wipe against, frame by frame, to confirm your conformed timeline matches editorial exactlyIt is the final deliverableIt stores the gradeIt is the raw camera media

4. Your conformed clip almost matches the offline but is framed slightly differently. What likely happened, and where do you fix it?

   The audio is out of sync; re-import audioNothing can be doneThe color space is wrong; fix it in project settingsA reframe/crop from the edit didn’t fully carry; fix it with sizing/inspector against the offline wipe

Check answers

You can move on when you can… import an XML/AAF/EDL, conform it to the camera originals, verify every shot against an offline reference with a wipe, fix the usual discrepancies, and media-manage a roundtrip-ready deliverable back to the edit.

Mark this lesson complete

Go deeper

Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema — Avid to Resolve: Conform for Color: the only AAF-native walkthrough in the set. Rough production, but real troubleshooting — exporting the AAF and offline from Media Composer, relinking raw media, and eyeballing reframes back into place with the offline wipe.

Watch for: Exporting an AAF (video, effects rendered) plus a QuickTime offline from Avid, then 'ignore file extensions' and 'use sizing information' on import, and fixing carried-over crops/reframes against the offline.

Netflix — Color Roundtrip from Dailies to Final Grading, Part Two (forward-pointer): how conform fits into a full production dailies-to-final pipeline with ColorTrace and per-scene CDLs. This is Level 3 territory (module 3.9) — watch it as a preview of where the roundtrip goes at studio scale, not as a how-to yet.

Watch for: [Preview of Level 3.] How a conform slots into a managed dailies pipeline — ColorTrace carrying CDLs from dailies into the final grade. Don't worry about the details yet.

Next up: 2.9 · Look development I — analysis — learning to see and deconstruct a reference grade.