Practice & capstones

Every lesson has a Do it section with its own footage and workbook. This page collects the bigger capstones — one per level — that gate your progress. A level is truly done when you can pass its capstone, scopes-verified, against the provided reference stills.

Level 1 capstone — Balance a scene

Gate: balance one shot. The capstone proves it at scene scale: balance five mixed shots to a consistent, correct baseline, each one verified on the scopes. This is the single thing that decides whether you’re ready for Level 2 — not how many videos you watched.

The brief

You have five shots of varying exposure, white balance and (ideally) mixed cameras or lighting. Your job is to take all five to a correct, neutral, consistent balance — the workflow from 1.6 · Balancing a shot — so that, cut together, they feel like one continuous scene. No creative look. Just correct, and consistent.

For each shot:

If it’s log, normalize it first with a CST node or RCM (1.5).
Build a labeled serial node tree — Exposure, Contrast, Balance, Sat (1.4).
Balance in order: exposure → contrast → white balance → saturation (1.6).
Grab a still of your first finished shot, then wipe-compare every following shot against it so the five match.
Export the graded scene at correct levels and codec (1.7).

What footage to use (for now)

Real per-lesson practice footage with matching reference stills is still being assembled — those downloads land later. Until then, use either of these, both free:

Your own log clips. Anything you shot in a log profile is perfect — it forces you to normalize and balance for real.
Blackmagic’s free training media. Blackmagic Design publishes free project/media downloads alongside the official DaVinci Resolve training guides (blackmagicdesign.com → DaVinci Resolve → Training). Grab a lesson project and use its clips.

Level 1 workbook — capstone brief, scope-verified checklist & self-assessment rubric (printable)level-1-workbook.pdf571 KBOriginal course material — free to use

Scope-verified checklist

Tick every box, on the scopes, for all five shots:

No clipping or crushing — nothing slammed flat against the top or bottom of the waveform (unless it’s meant to be, like a practical light).
Exposure consistent — the mid-tones (faces) sit at a similar level across all five shots.
Neutral white balance — the RGB parade channels line up on things that should be neutral; no unwanted cast.
Skin on the line — any faces sit on or just clockwise of the vectorscope’s skin-tone line.
Saturation sensible — the vectorscope trace isn’t ballooning past reasonable limits.
Shots match — wipe between adjacent shots and the join feels continuous, not like a jump cut in color.

Self-assessment rubric

Grade yourself honestly against the Level 1 competency (from the curriculum):

Not yet — shots are individually okay but don’t match, or you balanced by eye without confirming on scopes, or a log shot was hand-graded instead of normalized.
Passing — all five are correct (exposure, neutral, sensible contrast/saturation), verified on scopes, and reasonably consistent cut together. You normalized log via CST/RCM, built labeled node trees, and exported at correct levels.
Strong — the five are indistinguishable as a scene, skin lands on the line throughout, and you can explain every node in every tree and why it’s in that order.

You pass Level 1 — and unlock Level 2 — at Passing or above. If you land at Not yet, the fix is almost always more reps on 1.6, not more watching.

Level 2 capstone — Match & finish a short

Gate: match a scene and finish a short film color-managed. Grade a provided multi-camera short end-to-end — conform, balance, match, look, and deliver to a written spec. This is the single thing that decides whether you’re ready for Level 3, and it’s the exact shape of a real job. The free Blackmagic Certified User (Colorist) exam is the external checkpoint that pairs with it — a real, free, open-book credential worth sitting when you can pass this capstone.

The brief

You’re handed a short film — a few minutes, cut in an NLE, shot on at least two different cameras (mixed log formats) with some tricky lighting. Take it from an editor’s handoff to a finished, delivered master, color-managed throughout. No grading by eye on an uncalibrated screen; every decision verified on scopes.

Work in this order — it’s the whole of Level 2 in sequence:

Conform the editor’s timeline. Import the provided XML/AAF/EDL, relink to the camera originals, and sync-check every shot against the offline reference with a wipe (2.8).
Color-manage the project. Set up RCM or ACES so every camera maps to a common base; tag each clip’s input color space to its real log-and-gamut pair (2.1, 2.2).
Balance every shot to a correct, neutral baseline — exposure, contrast, white balance, saturation, scope-verified (1.6).
Match the mixed cameras invisibly. Pick a hero shot, grab a reference still, and match the rest on the parade so a cut between cameras is seamless (2.3).
Build the grade at scale. Use group grades (pre-clip corrections, post-clip look), shared nodes and stills so the timeline is a system, not forty hand-graded clips (2.7). Use secondaries where skin, skies or products need isolating (2.4), the curves family for targeted hue work (2.5), and keep skin honest (2.6).
Develop a look. Analyze a reference grade and apply a consistent, intentional look across the film — contrast, palette, density, split-toning, or a film emulation with halation and grain (2.9, 2.10).
Deliver to the written spec below, and prepare a roundtrip back to the edit (1.7, 2.8).

The delivery spec (grade to this — it’s the point)

Treat this as a client’s delivery document. Your master is not “done” until it meets every line:

Master color space: Rec.709 / Gamma 2.4, D65 white point (SDR).
Container / codec: Apple ProRes 422 HQ (QuickTime .mov).
Resolution & frame rate: UHD 3840×2160 (or 1920×1080 if that’s the source), progressive, at the source frame rate (e.g. 25p) — do not resample.
Levels: Video levels (legal range), broadcast-safe on; nothing clipping the waveform ceiling or crushing the floor except intentional speculars/practicals.
Deliverables: (1) one flattened graded master file of the full short; (2) the graded timeline media-managed with 48-frame handles for editorial roundtrip; (3) a still or PowerGrade of your hero-shot grade, plus a CDL of the primary balance, so the look is portable.
Naming: ShortTitle_Grade_Rec709_v01.mov.

What footage to use (for now)

Dedicated multi-camera capstone footage with an interchange file and reference stills lands in a later pass. Until then, either is fine and free:

Blackmagic’s free training media — the DaVinci Resolve training projects include mixed-camera timelines you can conform and grade.
Your own multi-camera footage — even two cameras of the same scene, cut in any NLE and exported as XML, gives you a real conform-match-deliver run.

Level 2 workbook — capstone brief, delivery spec, scope-verified checklist & self-assessment rubric (printable)level-2-workbook.pdf799 KBOriginal course material — free to use

Scope-verified checklist

Tick every box before you call the master done:

Conformed & synced — every shot matches the offline reference on a wipe; no flips, reframes or timecode slips left unfixed.
Color-managed — one consistent pipeline (RCM or ACES); each clip’s input color space is correct; no shot hand-normalized by eye.
Balanced — exposure consistent across the film, neutral where it should be neutral, no unwanted casts on the parade.
Matched — cuts between different cameras are invisible; skin lands on the vectorscope’s skin-tone line throughout.
Graded at scale — a group/look structure, not forty independent clips; you can explain every node.
Look is consistent — one intentional look reads across the whole short, not a different flavor per scene.
Meets the delivery spec — Rec.709/2.4, ProRes 422 HQ, correct resolution/frame rate, legal levels, handles and portable-look deliverables all present.

Self-assessment rubric

Grade yourself honestly against the Level 2 competency:

Not yet — cameras don’t match, or the look drifts scene to scene, or a shot was hand-graded outside the color-managed pipeline, or the master misses the spec (wrong levels, codec, or no roundtrip handles). Any single failed checklist box is a Not yet.
Passing — the short is conformed, color-managed, balanced, invisibly matched across cameras, carries one consistent intentional look, and the master meets every line of the delivery spec, scope-verified. A viewer can’t tell it was shot on two cameras.
Strong — all of the above, plus the grade is efficient and readable (clean groups, shared nodes, labelled trees), the look shows real analysis (deliberate density and palette, not a dropped-on LUT), and you could hand the project to another colorist who’d understand it instantly.

You pass Level 2 — and unlock Level 3 — at Passing or above. If you land at Not yet, the fix is usually more reps on shot matching (2.3) and grade architecture (2.7), the two skills this capstone tests hardest. Then sit the free Blackmagic Certified User (Colorist) exam to make it official.

Level 3 capstone — Pipeline & masters

Gate: design a pipeline and deliver HDR/SDR masters that pass QC. This is the final gate — the thing that separates someone who can grade from someone who can run color for a production. It has three parts: (a) write a show pipeline document, (b) grade the Level 2 capstone short in HDR and derive an SDR trim, and (c) self-QC both against the written spec below. No new footage needed — you’re taking the short you already finished and running it through a real finishing pipeline.

Part A — Write the show pipeline document

Design the pipeline a production would hand to its DIT, dailies lab, editorial, VFX and finishing team. Write it as a document someone else could follow. Use this template outline (3.3 is the source):

Working space & color science — your choice of ACEScct or DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate, the ACES version if ACES, and the Resolve color-science setting. Justify the choice in one sentence (3.1, 3.3).
Input transforms — the IDT for every camera and source on your short (list each camera’s real log/gamut pair) (2.1).
Show LUT / look — what your look is, how it was derived and approved (from a reference frame), where it lives (as a scene-referred LMT, before the DRT), and its version number (3.3, 2.9).
Output transforms — one ODT per deliverable: Rec.709/Gamma 2.4 SDR and a P3-D65 ST.2084 HDR target (3.2, 3.6).
Dailies CDL workflow — how on-set CDLs are captured, kept portable (Lift/Gamma/Gain/Sat, Luminance Mixer zeroed), exported (ALE/EDL + CSV), and re-applied at conform via ColorTrace (3.9).
VFX interchange spec — plate format (scene-linear OpenEXR), the interchange color space (ACES2065-1 or your working space), whether plates travel graded (they don’t — un-graded, with the show look for preview), and the AMF (3.9, 3.3).
Deliverables & QC — the master formats and the spec they’re checked against (3.8, and Part C below).

Show Pipeline Document — fill-in template for the seven sections above (this is Part A)show-pipeline-template.pdf150 KBOriginal course material — free to use

Part B — Grade in HDR, derive an SDR trim

Take your finished Level 2 short and re-finish it for HDR, then derive SDR:

Set up the HDR pipeline from your Part A document: color-managed wide working space, output to Rec.2100 PQ, P3-D65 limited, 1000 nits (3.6).
Grade for the bigger box. Place speculars and practicals up into the bright range instead of clipping them; keep middle grey where it belongs. Use the color-space-aware HDR palette for photographically accurate moves.
Honest-display note (read this): if you have a calibrated HDR reference display, grade on it. If you don’t, grade in a PQ timeline anyway, use Resolve’s tone-mapping preview to approximate on your SDR monitor, and label your output HDR-simulated. Write one sentence stating what you could and couldn’t actually judge. Pretending an SDR laptop can finish 1000-nit HDR is the one thing that fails this capstone automatically.
Derive the SDR trim. Re-target the output to Rec.709/Gamma 2.4 and do a light per-shot trim pass — pull speculars back under clipping, rescue any lost shadow — without re-grading. Optionally, do it the Dolby Vision way: run an L1 analysis and author L2 SDR trims as metadata (3.7).

The spec (grade and QC to this — it’s the point)

Your two masters aren’t “done” until they meet every line:

HDR master: Rec.2100, PQ / ST.2084, P3-D65 limited, 1000-nit target, 10-bit, UHD (or 1080p if that’s your source). Measured MaxCLL / MaxFALL present on export.
SDR master: Rec.709 / Gamma 2.4, D65, derived by trim (or Dolby Vision metadata) from the HDR — creative intent preserved, nothing clipping or crushing beyond intent.
Legal ranges: both masters broadcast-safe; nothing above the ceiling or below the floor except intentional speculars/practicals (3.8).
Container / codec: a flattened master file per version (ProRes 4444 XQ or the HDR-capable codec your system supports for HDR; ProRes 422 HQ for SDR).
Metadata: HDR transfer characteristic reads PQ (verify in MediaInfo if available); MaxCLL/MaxFALL or a valid Dolby Vision XML present.
Compliance: think Harding — flag any hard flash/strobe in your short and note how you’d soften it.
Naming: ShortTitle_HDR_PQ_P3D65_1000nit_v01.mov and ShortTitle_SDR_Rec709_v01.mov.

Part C — Self-QC both masters against the spec

Run the finishing QC discipline from 3.7 and 3.8: validate → verify → view.

Pipeline document complete — all seven sections written, choices justified, another colorist could follow it.
HDR grade uses the box — speculars live in the bright range, not clipped; middle grey correct; no illegal excursions.
Metadata correct — MaxCLL/MaxFALL measured and present; transfer characteristic reads PQ; (if Dolby Vision) XML validates.
SDR is a trim, not a re-grade — intent preserved from HDR; nothing lost in the downmap; wipe HDR-intent vs SDR and the story reads the same.
Legal & compliant — both masters broadcast-safe; flash risks flagged for Harding.
Honest about the display — if HDR-simulated, said so, with a note on what you couldn’t judge.

Level 3 workbook — capstone brief (all three parts), HDR/SDR spec sheet & self-QC checklist (printable)level-3-workbook.pdf764 KBOriginal course material — free to use

Self-assessment rubric

Grade yourself honestly against the Level 3 competency:

Not yet — the pipeline document is vague or incomplete; or the HDR grade just brightens the SDR (no use of the bigger box); or the SDR is a fresh re-grade rather than a trim; or a master misses the spec (wrong transfer function, missing MaxCLL/FALL, illegal levels); or you claimed to finish HDR on a display that can’t show it. Any of these is a Not yet.
Passing — a complete, followable show pipeline document; an HDR grade that genuinely uses the range with correct metadata; a derived SDR trim that preserves intent; both masters legal and to spec; and — if you lacked an HDR display — an honest HDR-simulated label with a note on the compromise.
Strong — all of the above, plus the pipeline document is one you could actually hand a facility (input transforms per camera, versioned show look as an LMT, real dailies and VFX interchange specs), the HDR grade shows deliberate use of speculars and shadow depth, the SDR trim is minimal and invisible, and your self-QC caught and fixed at least one real issue before you called it done.

You pass Level 3 — and finish the course — at Passing or above. At Strong, you’ve demonstrated the whole Expert gate: you can run color for a production. The next step isn’t another lesson — it’s reps, a reel, and the first job.