You will need to have installed a copy of DaVinci Resolve version 18. Some exercises may work in older versions of Resolve after version 16. However, to get the most from this book, it is best to have the latest version of DaVinci Resolve. You can download the latest free version of DaVinci Resolve from the Blackmagic Design website here: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/

Also, download the DaVinci Resolve Bins (DRB) file here: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Video-Editing-Made-Easy-with-DaVinci-Resolve-18

All exercises will also work with the paid studio version of DaVinci Resolve. The technical requirements for your computer to run DaVinci Resolve can be found on the Blackmagic Design website here: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/readme/e8b376651a8d4f1fb7bb18167325fb7f

When opening Resolve for the first time, it can be quite confusing where to start. You will learn how to create a new project and where to set and save project settings in DaVinci Resolve so that you can load them up quickly for future projects.

Opening Resolve for the first time

After installing Resolve, the first time you open it, you will be greeted with the welcome screen (Figure 1.1) that gives you an overview of the latest features. This can be found in the Help menu if you need to be reminded: Help > Welcome to DaVinci Resolve:

Figure 1.1: Welcome screen

Next, Resolve will ask where you want to save the certain files it needs to be able to work. You can always change these locations later, but first, let us look at what they are so that you can better understand where to tell Resolve to store them.

Cache files

Cache files are media files that Resolve temporarily stores for easy access to help Resolve access them quicker while you are editing, which also helps for the faster playback of your media on your Timeline. It is best to store these cache files on your internal hard drive on your computer, or if it’s faster, an external Solid State Drive (SSD) connected to your computer. If you’re using an external drive for your cache files, remember to plug it in before you start Resolve; otherwise, Resolve will not know where to store your cache files and present the following message (Figure 1.2):

Figure 1.2: Cache files warning message

Stills

Resolve also needs to know where to save your stills. Otherwise, you will get the following message (Figure 1.3) if Resolve can not find the drive your stills folder is linked to:

Figure 1.3: Stills warning message

This is not, as it sounds, where you store still photos you use in your edit. It is where Resolve stores still images of frames you select from your Timeline. It’s a bit like a screenshot or photo of a moment in time of your edit.

This can be useful if you want to share an image from your Timeline as a thumbnail for your social media posts. You can store these stills on a hard drive anywhere. It doesn’t need to be a fast drive – save that for your cache files.

Top tip

If you change your mind, you can change the cache and stills locations later. It is good practice to store the cache and stills files directly on your computer as Resolve will not lose the link to them. Unless, of course, you move the folders when tidying up your computer. In this case, you can relink them to the moved folder or create a new folder to link to if you have deleted it.

Creating your first project

Now that we have told Resolve where to store the files it needs to create in order to work fluidly, we can create your first project. This is done in Project Manager (Figure 1.4):

Figure 1.4: Project Manager

There are two ways to create a new project:

• Click on the New Project button in the bottom-right corner of the Project Manager window
• Alternatively, open the Untitled Project template

Which you choose is up to you.

The only difference is that New Project will ask you for a project name before creating it, whereas, with Untitled Project, you can create a blank project without having to name it.

The Untitled Project option is good for creating a temporary project to play around with the features in Resolve without needing to save a project. Of course, if you change your mind, you can always save this project and Resolve will ask you to name it first so that it can save it.

Now that you have created your first project, let’s look at the visual layout or User Interface (UI) of Resolve and how you can customize it to suit how you work.

When first using Resolve, it can be a little confusing, as there are so many pages all with a myriad of functions, which to a beginner can be understandably overwhelming. It’s like learning to fly for the first time using a Jumbo Jet! Thankfully, we can simplify the workspace by hiding many of the pages so that our interface is more appropriate for a beginner, much more like learning to fly in a small propellor plane. It is still daunting but much more achievable!

However, first, let us look at how Resolve is unique in using pages in the first place.

Understanding the Resolve pages

Blackmagic Design, the owner of DaVinci Resolve, has created a separate page for each of these different software programs laid out in a row at the bottom of the software interface (Figure 1.5). The benefit of this is that you can do advanced sound, color, and visual effects without having to export your film edit out into another application. Resolve is the only editing software that has this function. Other editing programs rely on plugins or exporting the edit into another application to do more advanced work and then reimporting it back in to do further edits. Of course, if you prefer to work this way, then Resolve will let you do this too. However, this is a more advanced and time-consuming technique and is beyond the scope of this book.

You might have noticed that the pages are laid out in the order of a traditional filmmaking workflow. However, the beauty of Resolve is that you can go back and forth between the pages and work in any order that you want.

In this chapter and for most of the book, we will be using the Cut page, which is the default page that Resolve will take you to when you first open a new project.

The Cut page is used for creating a quick edit and is great for quickly creating and publishing social media content or rough cut for a feature film:

Figure 1.5: The Cut page

Now, let us simplify our workspace so that we can focus mainly on the Cut page without the distractions of the other pages.

Simplifying the workspace

Having so much software functionality can be great when you need to use all of the powerful features of Resolve for your feature film. However, if you just want to use one or a few of the pages, Resolve has a handy feature where you can temporarily hide the page you don’t want. Let’s do that now. For now, we are going to hide the Media, Edit, Color, Fusion, Fairlight, and Deliver pages:

1. Select the Workspace menu in the top-right corner of Resolve (the Menu bar).
2. Select Show Page.
3. Click on the pages you want to hide – in this case, the Media, Edit, Color, Fusion, Fairlight, and Deliver pages.
4. There will now be a tick next to the pages Resolve will show and no tick next to the pages Resolve will hide. By default, all pages are preselected.

Now that your workspace is a lot simpler, we can save this new look as a preset, which you can quickly load again when you want to use it in the future:

1. In the Menu bar, select Workspace.
2. Select Layout Presets > Save Layout as Preset….
3. In the Enter Preset Name textbox, name your preset Basic Workspace.
4. Click on the OK button or press the Return key on your keyboard.

Well done! You have now created your first workspace preset, which you can quickly recall later.

Top tip

You can save your layout presets on a USB stick (or even in cloud storage such as Google Drive or DropBox) so that when you are working on someone else’s version of Resolve, you can load your workspace without affecting the way they like to lay it out.

Now that you have simplified your workspace, let’s start importing your media.

The Media page has some advanced functions for importing media that big-budget feature films use. However, it is quick and easy to import media directly into the Cut page. In fact, every page has the space to quickly import media – it’s called the Media Pool. The Media Pool is located in the upper-left corner of every page (Figure 1.6), which makes it easy to locate.

Import Media

In the upper-left corner, underneath the Media Pool button of the Cut page, there are two icons that allow you to quickly import media into Resolve:

Figure 1.6: Media Pool

The first button, Import Media (Figure 1.6), imports media files:

1. Left-mouse click on the Import Media button.
2. In your computer’s File Manager window that pops up, navigate to where you have your media files stored.
3. Select the files you want to import.
4. Click on the Open button.
5. If your imported footage (clip) does not have the same frame rate as your project’s frame rate, you will get a pop-up message (Figure 1.7) asking you to change the project frame rate to match the footage you are importing:

Figure 1.7: The Project Frame Rate pop-up message

6. Go ahead and click on Change to change the project frame rate to match the frame rate of your imported clips. We will cover project frame rates in more detail later.

You should notice that your Media Pool is now filled up with the media you just imported.

Now, let us look at the different ways we can view our clips in the Media Pool so that we can check we have the right footage before moving it to the Timeline.

Media Pool – changing your views

By default, your imported media are shown as thumbnails, but you can change this at any time. Let’s do this now:

1. Click on the Media Pool View options (Figure 1.6) in the top-right corner of the Media Pool.
2. Select List View (the fourth button from the left).

The thumbnails disappear but you can now see a more detailed list of the file properties of the media you imported.

The most common file property is the name of the file, “filename.” The problem with most cameras or audio recorders is that they name the files they create with a semi-random name such as SA478937.mov. This probably means a lot to the camera but means nothing to us.

Of course, the temptation is to change the filenames on our computer to make the file content easier to understand. The problem with this approach is that each time you change the filename on your computer (after you have imported it into Resolve), Resolve can no longer find it because it is looking for the previous filename.

A better approach is to use a feature in Resolve called Clip Name, which means you can change the name of the media in your bins as often as you like while retaining the original filename on your computer:

1. Make sure you are in List View.
2. Select Clip Name.
3. Type in the Clip Name field to change the clip name to something memorable.
4. Press the Return key on your keyboard or click outside the text field.

You have now changed your clip names to easily identify what they are.

Top tip

If you want to see a combination of the Thumbnail View and the List View, with a list of the most common properties of the media file, select the Metadata View.

Now, let’s preview some of the files that you have imported to see whether they were the ones you wanted to import:

1. Select Thumbnail View again (the second button).
2. Select a clip to load it into the Viewer.
3. Hover your mouse over the thumbnail.
4. Move your mouse cursor over the thumbnail.

As you move your mouse cursor over the thumbnail, you will notice the media will play back in the Viewer window.

This is a quick way to review your footage before committing it to the Timeline. There is an even quicker way if you have a lot of media to review, which we will show you later.

A few words about bins

By default, Resolve has a Master bin in the Media Pool that contains all the media (video, audio, and graphics) you have imported into your video project.

You might be wondering why it is called the Master bin, as like in real life, a bin on a computer is usually where we delete files.

Bin is a word that professional film editors use for a folder. It comes from the early days of celluloid film editing where strips of film would be pegged up over a bin, waiting for the film editor to splice them into the main edit (Figure 1.8):

Figure 1.8: Old 1925 photo of film over a bin (Source WikiCommons)

Creating a new bin

You can create extra bins to keep your media organized, for example, one bin for separate audio such as music and sound effects, and another one for video. Let’s do that now:

1. Right-mouse click anywhere on a blank space inside the Master bin.
2. Select New Bin.
3. A new bin will be created in the Master bin.
4. Name the bin Video. There are two ways to do this:
   • Right-click on the bin and select Rename Bin
   • Type directly in the Bin Name field under the Bin icon
5. Create another bin using the preceding steps and name it Audio.

Top tip

You can rename any bin apart from the Master bin by right-clicking on the bin and selecting Rename Bin. Right-clicking on objects such as bins, media, Timeline, and Viewers will usually reveal a hidden options menu. Try it and see what hidden options you can discover!

Now that we know what a bin is, and we have created our own, let’s look at the second button to import media with, called Import Media Folder.

Import Media Folder

This imports media but also imports the folders that are on your computer and converts them into bins:

1. Click on the Import Media Folder (Figure 1.6) button.
2. In the pop-up window, navigate to where your media files are stored.
3. Select the folder and files you want to import.
4. Click on the Open button.

You will now notice that nested inside the Master bin are other bins with the same name as the folders that held the media on your computer.

It is good practice to put all your media into appropriately named folders on your computer and import them using this second option rather than the time-consuming approach of creating your bins from scratch every time you edit. The other way to save time is to import the bins that have already been created in another project.

Importing bins

Let’s import some of the bins that I have created for you:

1. From the menu bar, select File > Import > Bin….
2. In the pop-up window, choose where on your computer you want to import your bins from.
3. You are looking for the Lances_Bins.DRB file you downloaded onto your computer.
4. Select Open.

You will now see a series of bins in your Master bin called Video, Audio, Credits, and Graphics. Each one has a blank media file in it. This is because Resolve needs content in the bins to be able to successfully export or import them. You can delete this temporary media by selecting it and then pressing the Delete key on your keyboard.

Deleting bins

You most likely are not going to need the Credits bin, so let’s delete it:

1. Right-click on the Credits bin.
2. Select Remove Bin….
3. The bin should now be removed.

Selecting the bin with your mouse and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard will also delete the bin.

Exporting bins

If you have a favorite layout for your bins, as of version 17, you can now export your bins structure as a .DRB file (which stands for DaVinci Resolve Bins) and store this on your USB with your UI presets. Let’s export your new bin structure without the Credits bin:

1. Click on the Bin List button (or the drop-down arrow next to it) to reveal a list of bins (Figure 1.9):

Figure 1.9: Bin List

2. Right-click on the name of the bin you want to export.
3. In the pop-up window, choose where on your computer you want to export your bins.
4. Where it says Save as, name your bins .DRB file something useful, such as Video Bins wo Credits.
5. Select Save.

Now you can create, delete, rename, import, and export bins to better organize and keep track of all your project’s media. Now, let’s start reviewing and editing our media.

The Cut page has some fantastic features that allow you to quickly review and edit video footage together. We will go through each step one at a time, but in reality, once you have mastered these tools, each step will only take seconds to execute, making your edit much speedier.

Reviewing your footage

You might recall how we used the mouse to scrub through each video clip’s content quickly. However, this can be time-consuming if we must do this for every clip. I am glad to say that Resolve has a far more efficient way to review all your video footage at once, using Source Tape mode.

Source Tape

Source Tape (Figure 1.10) is a way to watch all your “Source” video footage together at the same time as if playing it as one continuous video tape, hence the name Source Tape.

Let’s see how it works.

Figure 1.10: Source Tape Viewer mode

1. Select the Cut page.
2. In the top-left corner of the media viewer, select the Source Tape button (Figure 1.10).
3. The Viewer (Figure 1.10) will now populate with all the media in the selected bin.
4. Scrub through the mini transport Timeline under the Viewer to review all your footage quickly without having to load each individual clip into the Viewer:
   • The spacebar will play back footage at normal speed.
   • Pressing the spacebar again will stop the video playback.
   • Pressing the L key on your keyboard will also play through the footage at normal speed.
   • Pressing the L key twice will fast forward twice as fast. Three presses will be 4x as fast, four presses will be 8x as fast, five presses will be 16x as fast, and six presses will be 32x as fast.
   • Pressing the J key on your keyboard will play the footage backward.
   • Pressing the J key twice will fast reverse twice as fast. Three presses will be 4x as fast, four presses will be 8x as fast, and so on.

Top tip

Although I have focused on using keyboard keys to play back our footage (as it is quicker than clicking back and forth with a mouse), you can use a mouse to click on each of the video playback controls (also called transport controls, Figure 1.10) underneath the Viewer. These are the same symbols you will find on your CD/MP3 or DVD player, if you have one, and they work in the same way.

You will have noticed that, in Source Tape mode, the bin icons have disappeared and been replaced with dates instead. These are the dates when the video footage was created. You can change this view to show the bin names by selecting the Sort button. Let’s do this now.

5. Click on the Sort button (Figure 1.11):

Figure 1.11: The Sort button

6. From the drop-down list, select Bin.

You can isolate the playback of the footage to just the contents of one bin rather than everything in the Master bin, perhaps to review footage of a bin you have just imported:

1. Select a bin from the Master bin using the Bin List icon (Figure 1.9) in the top-left corner of the Media Pool.
2. Select Source Tape mode again (if it isn’t already selected).
3. Play back and review the footage by pressing the spacebar or the J and L keys.

You will have noticed several things when playing back footage in Source Tape mode:

• What gets played back in Source Tape is dependent upon what bin you have selected
• The vertical lines in the Viewer Transport Timeline (Figure 1.10) represent the beginning and end of clips
• As each clip is played back, it is highlighted (with an orange border) in the Media Pool

Now you can see how useful Source Tape is for reviewing all the footage in your master or selected bins quickly rather than having to select each clip individually.

However, there is an even quicker way within Source Tape that you can use to review your footage, called Fast Review.

Fast Review

Fast Review uses simple Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to adjust the playback speed of the clip based on the clip length. So, long clips are played back faster, while short clips are played back slower so that you don’t miss them. Let’s try it:

1. Make sure Source Tape is selected.
2. Select Fast Review (Figure 1.12) from the far left of the playback controls under the Viewer:

Figure 1.12: Fast Review mode

Fast Review gives you a quick and easy way to review your video footage to help you make decisions on what to include in your edit.

Editing your footage together

Before you edit your footage, let’s describe what a Timeline is and how it uniquely works on Resolve’s Cut page.

The Cut page timelines

All editing software has what is called a Timeline. This is a long horizontal strip/line onto which footage (frequently referred to as clips) is dropped, with the time or duration of the edited video displayed along the top of the Timeline.

Timelines

Use of the word Timeline is applied to both the horizontal strip where clips are edited (on the interface) and the name of the file in the Media Pool that contains all your editing decisions.

In this book, to differentiate between the two, we use Timeline for the Timeline interface and timeline for the timeline file in the Media Pool or when talking about timelines in general.

Timecode

This time is displayed in hours, minutes, seconds, and frames and is called a timecode. It is displayed as HH:MM:SS:FF (Figure 1.13):

Figure 1.13: The Timeline timecode

Upper timeline

What is unique to the Cut page is that it has two Timelines (Figure 1.14). The topmost Upper Timeline is the overview of your entire edit, which displays the whole duration of your entire video regardless of how long it is and how many clips there are. This is great for quickly navigating to any part of your Timeline and seeing how all your clips are edited together:

Figure 1.14: Cut page Timelines

Lower Timeline

The second Timeline (Lower Timeline), just below the Upper Timeline, is a more traditional editing Timeline that shows you a zoomed-in view of your Upper Timeline, which is a lot easier to see and make your edits with.

Key concept – Timelines, tracks, and shots

In a Timeline, each layer of the video is called a track, and each track is made up of a series of clips representing different camera shots or angles. So, the hierarchy of content goes like this:

Project > Timeline > Track > Clips.

So, a project can have several different Timelines, each Timeline can have several different tracks, and each track can contain several different clips.

Track 1 versus Track 2

On the Cut page, Track 1 (the bottom track) operates differently from Track 2 and above (that is, all the tracks above/on top of Track 1).

Track 1 will automatically shuffle footage (clips) along the Timeline to make room for the new clip – this is called Rippling. This is great for quickly adding clips to the Timeline to get your first overall edit done, also known as a Rough Cut. Whereas any clip added to Track 2 will overwrite any clips already on Track 2. Track 2 is useful for adding additional clips without affecting the duration of your first edit, such as adding cutaways or titles to be shown over existing clips.

Key concept – cutaway

We will cover cutaways in more detail in Chapter 8. However, as a brief overview, a cutaway is footage that is added to the edit that illustrates already existing footage on the Timeline.

An example of this is when a person is being interviewed and they refer to a product they are promoting – this is a good place to add a shot of the product on a track on top of the original interview footage where we continue to hear the interviewee describe the product.

The effect of this would be that the viewer would see the interviewee talk about the product, then see the camera “cut away” to a shot of the product while we still hear the interviewer talking about it. This gives the illusion to the viewer that these shots are happening in real time, as if they are watching a live multi-camera broadcast switching between cameras.

Of course, none of this has to be shot in real time and can all be accomplished in the edit.

Let us see how Track 1 rippling works in practice.

Adding footage to the Timeline – using Track 1

Using the skills you have just learned, use Source Tape and Fast Review to identify five shots you would like to use for your video:

1. Using Fast Review, find and identify the followings shots:
   • The master shot (a wide shot)
   • Two mid shots of your main subject
   • Two close-ups (either a reaction shot or a cutaway shot)
2. Select your master shot in the Viewer window.
3. Click and drag the master shot onto either Timeline.

Now, you have a master shot on the Timeline, which you can use to edit your other shots. All clips can be added to the Timeline by either clicking and dragging directly from the media bin or from the Viewer onto the Timeline.

Key concept – shot types

When making a video, we use different framing conventions called shot types, which add visual interest for the viewer by changing how much of our subject is in the frame. The closer the shot is to the subject (which is usually a person), the more it has an emotional impact on the audience.

The three main shot types are as follows:

• Wide Shot (WS): This shot contains the whole environment within which our subject is positioned and how they interact with it. For example, it could be a person standing in a room, where we see all of their body and their relationship to their environment – that is, their home or workplace. This shot is too wide to invoke much emotion.

• Mid/Medium Shot (MS): The bottom of the frame starts at the waist of our subject and the top of our frame ends just above the head of our subject. That is good for formal interviews.

• Close Up (CU): This is a small detail that is magnified, such as framing just the head and the top of the shoulders of the subject. This is good for showing intense emotion. It could also be a tight frame of our subject’s hands demonstrating a product.

There are many more shot types, but these are the main ones to use when you are just starting out. If you change your mind, you can delete any clip from the Timeline by selecting it with the mouse and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. Don’t worry – doing this will not delete your original footage as it is still available in the media bin.

Key concept

Editing in Resolve is ”non-destructive,” which means that you can delete clips from the Timeline and even the media bin and still be able to reimport the same media back in.

When you edit, you are not cutting your original footage but a live preview of it. Resolve stores the editing decisions you make (in a database) and then applies them to your final film when you export it.

The timeline playhead

On the Timeline, you will notice a vertical orange line – this is called the playhead (Figure 1.14). The Viewer will show a picture of the frame that is under the playhead on the Timeline. The Timecode display in the bottom-right corner of the Viewer window also shows the timecode for the current frame under the playhead.

You can move the Timeline playhead just like the playhead in the Viewer using the spacebar or the J and L keys.

You can also use the playhead position to tell Resolve where you want to make a cut. Let’s remove the usual dead space at the start of your master shot:

1. Position your playhead just before the main action starts in your story.
2. If there is dialogue, you can use the audio waveforms at the bottom of the clip as a guide.
3. Select Trim Start from the Trim menu (this is called Trim to Playhead in earlier versions of Resolve).

Now your story starts by jumping straight into the action.

Usually, your master shot will be far too long to use by itself, so we will need to break it up to bring visual interest to the viewer.

Find a part of your master shot where your subject has finished their main thought or action. We are going to cut it here, and add a different angle to add visual interest:

1. Move the playhead to where you want to make a cut.
2. Click on the Split Clips button (Figure 1.15) just below the Media Pool:

Figure 1.15: The edit buttons

You will notice that the master shot has now been split into two. The dotted vertical line shows that the footage is continuous and has no frames missing – this is called a through edit.

Setting in and out points

When editing, we don’t have to add a whole clip to the Timeline. We can trim the footage down to be shorter before we add it to the Timeline by adding In and Out Points. In and out points dictate the start (In) and end (Out) of the footage we are adding to the Timeline.

Now, let’s find an alternative clip to insert between the two clips we already have on the Timeline and trim out any excess footage from our new clip, using in and out points, before adding it to the Timeline:

1. In the Media Pool, select a mid-shot clip that matches or enhances the action of the master shot.
2. Play the clip in the Viewer until just before any action or speech. Then, press the I key on the keyboard to add an In point for the clip to start at.
3. Play the clip forward until just after the last words are said or an action is performed. Then, press the O key on the keyboard to an Out point for the clip to end at.

You will now notice an in and out point marker added to the thumbnail of the clip in the Media Pool, as well as underneath the Viewer. Now, when we put this clip on the Timeline, it will only take the footage in between the in and out points we have marked up on the clip. Now, let us insert this marked-up clip onto the Timeline using a feature called Smart Insert.

Smart Insert

Traditionally, when we add a clip to the Timeline, it will place it where the Timeline playhead is. There is a new feature called Smart Insert in the Cut page that predicts where we want the new clip to go based on how near the playhead is to a pre-existing cut. Let’s use Smart Insert to add our marked-up clip to the Timeline:

1. Make sure the playhead is near the cut that we made earlier; it doesn’t need to be precisely placed.

You will notice some arrows bouncing above the cut point. These are Smart Indicators, that is, they are a visual cue to show you where the clip will be inserted when you click on the Smart Insert button.

2. Click on the Smart Insert button (the first edit button; see Figure 1.15) from the upper-left corner of the Timeline.

The clip you have chosen has now been trimmed and added to the Timeline at the point where you previously made a cut. You should also notice that the surrounding clips have not been overwritten, but they have been moved further up the Timeline to make room for the new clip – this is called Rippling

Append to End

Now, let’s look at the next edit button (see Figure 1.15) in the editing toolbar underneath the Media Pool, Append.

The Append button places a new clip at the end of our Timeline regardless of where the playhead is placed. This is great for credits or adding footage quickly to the Timeline in chronological order without needing to position the playhead first:

1. In the Media Pool, find a new clip that you want to place at the end of the Timeline, such as the final shot of the product you are promoting or the final scene of your short film.
2. Click on the Append button.

The new clip has now been placed on the end of the Timeline regardless of the position of your playhead.

Ripple Overwrite

If you want to replace a clip on the Timeline with another clip in the Media Pool, then you can use Ripple Overwrite (the third edit button; see Figure 1.15). This is great if you want to change your mind about the content of your video. When you use Ripple Overwrite, if the new clip is too short, it will ripple the rest of the clips around the new clip to close any resulting gaps. If the new clip is too long, it will ripple the existing clips along the Timeline to make room for the new clip.

Let’s see this in action:

1. Select the clip in the Timeline that you want to replace. You can simply place your playhead on the clip to do this.
2. Select the new clip in the Media Pool.
3. Click on the Ripple Overwrite button.

You should have noticed that the new clip has replaced the old clip on the Timeline, and the Timeline has moved the clips to either side (rippled) of the new clip, reducing or increasing the length of the Timeline, depending on the duration difference between the two clips.

Adding footage to the Timeline – using Track 2

There are no problems with performing your whole edit by only using the Smart Insert, Append, or Ripple Overwrite buttons. However, there will be times when you will need more advanced functions to solve a particular problem; this is where the following edit tools come in.

So far, all of the edits we have been making have been to Track 1 in the Timeline. Whatever edit you make to Track 1 of the Timeline, the clips will always ripple to make room for the new edit. If you want to add clips to the Timeline without the Timeline rippling to make room for the addition, you can add the clips to Track 2, which will not ripple the Timeline, but instead overlays a clip (on Track 2) on top of existing clips (on Track 1).

Close Up

The next Edit tool, Close Up (the fourth edit button; see Figure 1.15), uses Track 2 to add a close-up of the existing footage on Track 1. It does this by taking a zoomed-in view of the clip on your Timeline where your playhead is and adding a 5-second duration clip to Track 2. If the duration between your playhead and the end of the existing clip is shorter than 5 seconds, it will end the new clip at the end of your existing clip.

It is important to note that this is digitally zoomed, so there might be some loss of quality unless you use a clip that has a higher resolution than the Timeline, such as a 4K clip for a 1080p Timeline.

This tool does not have to be used only for close-ups; for example, it can also convert a wide shot into a medium shot.

Let’s take the medium shot that you placed on the Timeline earlier and convert some of it into a close-up:

1. Place your playhead on the Timeline over the medium shot clip where you want the close-up to start.
2. Click on the Close Up tool button underneath the Media Pool.

You will notice a new close-up shot placed on Track 2 above the existing shot on Track 1.

This is a useful tool to use in an emergency if you’re editing footage where no close-ups were shot and there is no time for a re-shoot.

Place on Top

Now we are familiar with how to place shots on Track 2 so that the Timeline does not become rippled, let us look at another editing tool that uses Track 2 to add alternative footage.

The Place on Top edit button (the fifth button; see Figure 1.15) adds a new clip to Track 2 above the existing clips on Track 1. This is good when adding cutaways or inserting shots to the main edit without affecting the duration of the video on the Timeline.

By default, the Place on Top tool places the new clip onto Track 2 starting at your playhead position on the Timeline.

Let’s see this in practice. We will now add one of our cutaway shots to the Timeline to illustrate the main dialogue in the video:

1. Place your playhead in the Timeline where you want your new clip (e.g., a cutaway shot) to begin.
2. Select your new clip in the Media Pool.
3. Click on the Place on Top button.

You should now have a new clip on Track 2 of your Timeline starting where you had your playhead placed.

Once you have completed your main edit and set the final duration of your video, you can use this tool to add extra shots without affecting the length of your video.

Source Overwrite

The final edit tool underneath the Media Pool is the Source Overwrite button. This button only works if you have more than one clip with overlapping timecodes. If you do not have footage with timecodes, then this button will do nothing. As this is an editing book for beginners, we will ignore this button.

Feel free to practice using these editing tools until you have mastered them by adding and swapping the footage on your Timeline until you are happy with your edit.

In the next section, we will look at how to publish your edited video to social media such as YouTube or Vimeo.

Let’s see how easy it is to publish your edited video directly from Resolve onto social media platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo.

First, we will need to set up Resolve with our social media accounts to enable it to publish directly through them. You will only need to do this once, but it can save a lot of time compared to exporting your video to your computer and then uploading and publishing it to social media separately.

Setting up your social media accounts in Resolve

Resolve has the ability to publish videos directly to your YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter accounts. First, you need to sign in to your social media accounts in the Quick Export menu:

1. Click on the Quick Export button in the upper-right corner of the Viewer window.
2. From the Quick Export screen, select one of the following:
   • YouTube
   • Vimeo
   • Twitter
3. Click on the Manage Account button. This will take you to the Internet Accounts page.
4. Click on the Sign In button for one of the following:
   • YouTube
   • Vimeo
   • Twitter
5. Sign in to your social media account using your usual login details and authorize Resolve to have access to your account.
6. Click on the Save button in the bottom-right corner of the Internet Accounts page.
7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 for your other social media accounts.

Top tip

If you want to access the Internet Accounts page again to sign Resolve out of your accounts, you can access it from the DaVinci Resolve menu: Preferences > System > Internet Accounts.

You now have your social media accounts set up and ready to quickly publish your videos to social media.

Publishing to social media within Resolve

Publishing directly to social media is as easy as selecting some options on the Quick Export page.

Publishing directly to YouTube

Let’s look at the YouTube options first:

1. Click on Quick Export.
2. Select YouTube.
3. Check the Upload Directly to YouTube box.
4. Select the YouTube Privacy option from the drop-down list:
   • Private
   • Public
   • Unlisted
5. Select the playlist options from the drop-down list:

Film & Animation, Auto & Vehicles, Music, Pets &Animals, Sports, Travel & Events, Gaming, People & Blogs, Comedy, Entertainment, News & Politics, Howto & Style, Education, Science & Technology, or Nonprofits & Activism

6. Type the title of your video into the Title textbox.
7. Type the description of your video into the Description textbox.
8. Click on the Export button in the bottom-right corner of the Quick Export page.
9. Choose a file location for your exported video.
10. Click on the Save button.

Resolve has now saved a copy of your exported video to the location you specified on your computer and uploaded and published a copy of the video directly to YouTube using the settings you specified on the Quick Export page.

Publishing directly to Vimeo

Now, let’s look at the Vimeo options:

1. Click on Quick Export.
2. Select Vimeo.
3. Check the Upload Directly to Vimeo box.
4. Select the Vimeo Privacy option from the drop-down list:
   • Anyone
   • Only Me
   • People I follow
   • People with the password
5. Type the title of your video into the Title textbox.
6. Type the description of your video into the Description textbox.
7. Click on the Export button in the bottom-right corner of the Quick Export page.
8. Choose a file location for your exported video.
9. Click on the Save button.

Again, Resolve has saved a copy of your exported video to the location you specified on your computer and uploaded and published a copy of the video directly to Vimeo using the settings you specified on the Quick Export page.

Publishing directly to Twitter

Finally, let’s look at the Twitter export options:

1. Click on Quick Export.
2. Select Twitter.
3. Check the Upload Directly to Twitter box.
4. Type the description of your video into the Description textbox.
5. Click on the Export button in the bottom-right corner of the Quick Export page.
6. Choose a file location for your exported video.
7. Click on the Save button.

Yet again, Resolve has saved a copy of your exported video to the location you specified on your computer and uploaded and published a copy of the video directly to Twitter using the description you specified on the Quick Export page.

Top tip

On the Quick Export page, Resolve uses common video settings for social media accounts. However, you can change these settings in the Timeline Resolution drop-down list (Figure 1.16).

Once you change the timeline resolution, you will notice that the export file settings on the Quick Export page will change accordingly. This is useful if you want to, for example, upload your videos in 4K rather than 1080p.

Figure 1.16: Timeline Resolution drop-down menu

We now know how to publish videos directly to three commonly used social media accounts directly from Resolve. However, we can also export our videos and upload them separately to other social media accounts. Let us look at how to do that next.

Preparing a video to upload to social media outside Resolve

Of course, there are more social media accounts than just YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter. The list keeps on growing, along with their different formatting and aspect ratio requirements. Thankfully, in Resolve, you can quickly reframe and repurpose existing videos to use for different social media platforms, both current and future ones.

For example, let’s take the video you have just edited and prepared for uploading to Instagram. According to Facebook, which owns Instagram, their video requirements are as follows:

“Video Resolution and Size:

• You can upload a video with an aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 9:16.
• Videos should have a minimum frame rate of 30 FPS (frames per second) and minimum resolution of 720 pixels.
• The maximum file size for videos that are 10 minutes or less is 650MB. The maximum file size for videos up to 60 minutes is 3.6GB.”

Of course, these requirements can always change, so it is best to check for yourself on a regular basis to be sure.

Source: www.facebook.com/help/instagram/1038071743007909/?helpref=uf_share

Duplicating your Timeline

First, let’s create a copy of our Timeline so that we can make changes to it without losing our original edit:

1. In the Media Pool, right-click on your Timeline and select Duplicate Timeline.
2. Rename the duplicated Timeline to something suitable, such as IGTV Edit, by performing the following:
   • Click on the title below the thumbnail by clicking on it twice and entering a new name
   • Alternatively, if in the List view, type directly into the Clip Name field
3. Double-click on the new Timeline thumbnail or icon (if in the List view) to open the new Timeline.

Now that we have a copy of our Timeline, let’s reframe our video for the new aspect ratio.

Checking your content for a different aspect ratio

First, let’s check our content for our new video’s aspect ratio:

1. Click on the Safe Area button in the upper-left corner of the Viewer (Figure 1.17):

Figure 1.17: The Safe Area button

2. You will see a Social Media heading under which you have the following options:
   • 1:1
   • 4:5
   • 9:16
   • 1.91:1
   • 16:9
3. Select the one you prefer. In this case, we are going to select 9:16 as that is a popular format for Instagram TV (IGTV) and can also be used for Facebook and TikTok.
4. You will now see a white box on the Viewer that shows the safe area of our content for it to be seen in the 9:16 vertical format.
5. Scroll through the video on your Timeline, and you should notice that some of your content will suit the new frame; however, some will not.

You can either use Ripple Overwrite to replace the shots that are not framed well for the new aspect ratio or you can reframe the existing footage to suit.

Let’s change the framing of the existing clips.

Reframing our video using the Transform controls

Let’s reframe our video to suit the new aspect ratio:

1. Click on the Tools button (Figure 1.18) in the bottom-left corner of the Viewer. This reveals additional tools that we can use to enhance each clip:

Figure 1.18: The Tools button

2. Select the Transform tool (the first button; see Figure 1.19). It will be underlined in red to show it has been selected, and the transform controls will be shown underneath.
3. Click and drag the X position control (the third transform control from the left) to change the X position value of the clip to move it to the left or right until the subject of the clip is inside the white Safe Area box:

Figure 1.19: The Transform button and controls

Top tip

To see before and after any effect, you can toggle the effect on and off by clicking on the red switch to the left of the controls. Anywhere you see this red toggle switch, you can use it to preview what an effect will look like on the video or even disable an effect without deleting it.

Feel free to go through each clip and use the Transform tool to reframe your video to suit your new aspect ratio.

Now, let’s crop your video to suit the new aspect ratio by changing the Timeline Resolution.

Changing the timeline resolution

We now need to change your Timeline Resolution, which will also change the aspect ratio:

1. Click on the Timeline Resolution button (Figure 1.16) in the top-right corner of the Viewer to see a drop-down list of common Timeline presets:
   • Ultra HD 3840 x 2160
   • Full HD 1920 x 1080
   • Portrait 1080 x 1920
   • Square 1080 x 1080
2. Select Portrait 1080 x 1920 for our 9:16 vertical format.

You will notice that the video has now been resized down to fit the 9:16 vertical aspect ratio, but Resolve has added black bars above and below the original footage. We don’t want this, but it is an easy fix:

• Select Custom Timeline Settings from the bottom of the Timeline Resolution drop-down list
• Under the Format tab, next to the Mismatched Resolution options, change the option selected from Scale entire image to fit to Scale full frame with crop

Resolve has now rescaled and cropped the video on the Timeline to suit the new aspect ratio. It is now time to export our newly reframed video ready to be uploaded separately to IGTV.

Exporting video using Quick Export

Quick Export can be used not only for directly uploading your videos to social media, but also to quickly export videos to your computer.

Quick Export has three main Video Codecs presets, H.264, H.265, and ProRes.

• ProRes is a Video Codec mainly used by professional video editors to edit with, as it has a bigger size and is less compressed to retain quality, but due to its large size, it is not so great for social media.
• H.264 is a universally accepted Video Codec that efficiently compresses video into smaller file sizes while retaining quality.
• H.265 is a newer version of H.264, so is not as universally accepted. But it is more efficient at compressing video for the same quality as H.264, so the file sizes can be smaller.

Let us choose H.264 for our social media uploads:

1. Click on the Quick Export button.
2. Select H.264.
3. Click on the Export button.
4. Navigate to a folder on your computer where you want to save your video.

By default, Resolve will name your video after the Timeline name. However, you can rename your video before saving it to your computer.

5. Click on the Save button to save the file to your computer.

You have now repurposed an existing edited video for another social media platform by recomposing shots, cropping the video, changing its aspect ratio, and exporting it to your computer ready for separate upload at another time.

Top tip

You can add more presets to the Quick Export menu by creating them on the Media page. We will cover this in a later chapter.

Here is what you have achieved in Chapter 1:

• Learned about pages in DaVinci Resolve and how to hide them
• Saved your UI as an importable preset
• Imported footage into bins, and added, deleted, and exported bins
• Edited a rough cut using Track 1-specific editing tools such as Smart Insert, Append, and Place on Top
• Added cutaways using Track 2-specific editing tools such as Close Up and Place on Top
• Set up your social media accounts ready for publishing with Resolve
• Published your video to social media all within Resolve and not even leaving the Cut page
• Repurposed existing edits for different social media formats, reframing the footage using the Transform controls and adjusting the Timeline Resolution to change the aspect ratio
• Used Quick Export to create a copy suitable to upload to other social media accounts outside Resolve

You now know how to set up DaVinci Resolve to simplify the UI and use the editing tools on the Cut page to efficiently put together a rough cut and publish it directly to social media to save you time for your current and future video edits.

In Chapter 2, we will make the video you edited in Chapter 1 look even more amazing by adding titles, transitions, and motion graphics, to add more visual interest on top of your existing footage. Additionally, we will look at how your can share your work in progress with others in your team so that they can help you with your edit.

1. True or false? Adding new clips to Track 1 on the Cut page deletes existing footage on the Timeline, whereas adding new footage to Track 2 ripples the footage on the Timeline.
2. What social media accounts can you publish videos to directly from Resolve?
3. Which editing tools work specifically with Track 1 of the Timeline on the Cut page?
4. Which editing tools work specifically with Track 2 of the Timeline on the Cut page?
5. True or false? Timecode is the term used to program time-based effects in DaVinci Resolve.

• Oscar-nominated films in 2021 that used DaVinci Resolve or Fusion: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/media/release/20210422-01
• Top Sundance films and TV series using DaVinci Resolve: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/release/20190129-02
• Indian Tamil-Language Film ‘Soorarai Pottru’ Graded Using DaVinci Resolve: http://www.content-technology.com/postproduction/indian-tamil-language-film-soorarai-pottru-graded-using-davinci-resolve-studio/
• Resolve used to Grade Sundance films: https://magazine.artstation.com/2019/02/behind-the-scenes-sundances-top-films/
• Chinese Blockbuster The Eight Hundred Graded by Zhang Gen Using DaVinci Resolve: https://www.cinematography.world/chinese-blockbuster-the-eight-hundred-graded-by-zhang-gen-using-davinci-resolve-studio/
• Summer 2019’s Biggest Film Releases Used Blackmagic Design: https://www.nexttv.com/post-type-the-wire/bmd-2019-summer-films
• Fusion Studio Used by Flash Film Works To Composite Fox’s ‘Spy’: https://indieshooter.com/fox-spy-blackmagic-fusion-studio/
• The Long List Of Summer Blockbusters Using Blackmagic Design Products: https://indieshooter.com/new-site/blackmagic-design-summer-movie-products/
• Summer movie lineup benefits from Blackmagic Design: https://www.panoramaaudiovisual.com/pt/2021/08/30/summer-movie-lineup-blackmagic-design/
• Behind the scenes of creating the soundtrack for Fight Club: http://filmsound.org/studiosound/pp_fightclub.html