Editing A Documentary - Workflow Organisation & Project Setup in Davinci Resolve
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- Learning to edit a long-form documentary is something that doesn't come overnight, but a clear workflow and great asset management will help you organise your source footage in a way that leaves your brain free from clutter, so it can focus entirely on the creative side of editing. In this video I show you how I structure my project within Davinci Resolve for long-form documentary style films.
View the final documentary here:
www.lumiere.nz/work/oraking
Free Video Editing Assets:
joshuakirknz.gumroad.com/
Chapters:
0:00 - Documentary Editing Workflow Intro
1:04 - Documentary Teaser (Ora King - Our Story)
1:40 - Dailies Management - Media Pool Folders
4:40 - B-Roll Stringouts
6:17 - B-Roll Selects
7:22 - B-Roll Themed Breakdowns
9:55 - A-Roll Stringouts (Interview Sync)
11:30 - Transcribe Interviews As Markers (Using Edit Index)
14:26 - A-Roll Selects (Interview Selects)
15:15 - A-Roll Sync Pulls (Themed Interview Selects)
16:40 - Recap & Summary
18:45 - Creative Editing & First Draft
19:41 - Wrap Up - Thanks!
Simon Says Transcription Software Mentioned:
www.simonsays.ai/
⏩ Let's connect on LinkedIn:
/ joshuakirknz
⏩ & on Instagram:
/ joshuakirk.nz
========== Equipment ==========
I use this software for all of our Production Quotes and Estimates:
qwilr.com/?r=JpKzqTlMH4s
I use Rev for all the transcriptions and captions in my videos:
Check them out here ⏩ try.rev.com/3vNsFP
I get all my music for films and videos here:
www.musicbed.com/invite/HEVgr
==============================
This description includes affiliate links, which earn a commission to help support my channel at no additional cost to you. I only share products and services are actually awesome! - Фільми й анімація
Hey everyone - I have made a short follow up video answering some of your questions here - ua-cam.com/video/MlUzCTQBqIM/v-deo.html
Thank you so very much! This helps a beginner more than you know 🤗 So insightful and informative ❤
DUDE. You are a legend. Thank you. I am currently working on doing a documentary style video and I feel so overwhelmed. I have 140 hours of content and it's been a nightmare to tell a story! Thank you!!!
hey. i need some guidence can you help me .
Glad it has been helpful!
a legend indeed, thank you!
This is probably one of the best workflow breakdowns I have ever watched and definitely a must-watch for every assistant editor out there. I have enjoyed it and learnt so much from you. Joshua, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.
Glad it was helpful Martí - Thanks for watching!
This "tedious" stuff dealing with data management/organization is so valuable, thank you for making the effort to share your workflow!
This video is forever pinned in my brain, to remind myself that every project, big or small, needs to be this thoroughly organized. Thank you for everything you provide the community.
Appreciate this!
This was literally one of the best tutorials I've ever seen on UA-cam. About to dive in to editing my first long-form doc and will be using this as my guideline. Thank you!
How did it go?
Fantastic video... just blown away by how in-depth this goes. The marker/transcription tip is a gamechanger 🤯
Thanks!
Joshua thanks so much for this video and advice. I'm new to Resolve and have some large documentaries on my horizon. I feel as if you have pointed me in the right direction to build my foundation of editing and organization. Driving the edit from the interviews/story to create themes has always been how I try to create, but I lacked the technical knowledge and skills to set up my raw footage to support that. Thank you so much!
Great to hear! Hope it has helped with your future work :-)
I don't even do documentaries, but really enjoyed learning your workflow and your way of talking through things clearly. Thank you for sharing so all of us can learn!
Awesome, thank you - You're welcome!
I can't thank you enough for sharing your organizational process for documentary editing. I'm so glad that I stumbled upon your channel, as I'm working on my first documentary short. This window into your process is invaluable!
Thanks for the comment Eric! How did the documentary go?
Also,loved your colour grade on Rapaura Springs.
🙌
amazing. it took me two years of experience and research to get where you just presented in 20minutes. so good.
Stoked it was helpful!
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Thank you for the detailed video - would love to see more!
Thanks so much! Appreciate it :-)
The most valuable video for editor's. Worth watching video 🤞🏻🤩🎯
🙌
This video is AWESOME! I just found out about Simon Says doing Transcription in DaVinci Resolve, which I am just learning, so went searching for a video on how it works, You've shown us how to use it, along with the whole documentary organization and workflow. Exactly what I needed to know! THANK YOU!!
Glad it was helpful! I have another video talking about MacWhisper which is another option and also now with Resolve 18.5 the AI captions is another option, although not a great workflow for inputting them as markers in a timeline yet.
@@JoshuaKirkNZ Hi Josh, Thanks for this video. I will dig into it even more as I try out Resolve. Are you changing anything about your workflow with the new AI captions in Resolve? I haven't fully learnt about any of this yet, but am curious to know what you're choosing.
Brother, just made the switch from PP to Resolve and was going mad on how to have a nice workflow. Your vid came up, wow man you've saved me a ton of time. Coffee on me when I'm down your ways or when you're up here. Much love
Thanks bro! Welcome to the DaVinci club haha. Catch up soon!
Organising everything is the tedious,boring part of the process but you have helped me so much with this lesson.Thank you very much,Joshua. Tanya.
Thanks Tanya, Glad it helped :-)
This video deserves 10x the views, incredibly valuable 🙏🏼
Cheers mate!
Amazing video here. A bit more in-depth than what we need, but super helpful and picked up a bunch of tips. Would love to see that part 2
Cheers guys :-)
Just having returned from a 10 days holiday trip with appr. 250 video clips from 3 different cameras I went nuts with the traditional way of having just one timeline and throwing all footage in just three bins (one for each camera). Now, with your great tutorial I will setup the whole footage structuring from scratch, making a timeline per each day or even scene per day, adding all media to it.
Thanks so much for sharing your professional experience with us!
Good stuff. hope it worked out for ya!
Hey mate. I think this is the most valuable video I've ever watched about video editing workflow. Thank you so much. I'm taking that "transcribe technique with me. Cheers!
Glad it helped! You can now transcribe automatically within Davinci 18.5.
Beautiful Breakdown.
Thank you!
Joshua,
Thank you so much for this excellent video! You provided me with the 'big picture' necessary to produce my first documentary. Thank you for sharing your simple yet powerful method to organize and manage files! I have much to learn and look forward to viewing more of your videos. Thank you again!
Hi Joshua Kirk. I just start watching this video, I’m in the beginning. Before finish I decide to leave my comments because. This one I search for long time. You gave us a great lesson us. Thanks. Well done.
Thanks for the comment - Appreciate it :-)
This is just incredible !
Can’t wait to see more content like this, breakdowns, how to set the timeline, tips. Etc. The way you explain everything is amazing !
Hey Jonny, thanks - really appreciate the support!
@@JoshuaKirkNZ Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I’ve been learning a lot from you!
This is one of the most helpful resolve videos I have ever seen in my life, amazing job
Hey Jacob, wow thanks it means a lot! Glad I could help.
oh wow you just saved my life with this one. I just came back from an 3 months expedition to Greenland beeing totally overwhelmed by the amount of footage we took. I was searching for something like this for soooo long and couldn't ind any useful tips
Just got done watching the documentary. Beautifully shot and edited! Good job 🙌🏽 This type of workflow tutorial is valuable for people wanting to go into serious documentary production. Thanks for the content!
Thanks Wade, and appreciate you taking the time to watch the final piece!
Holy moly! Lots of work, much appreciated Joshua! Thank you 😊
🙌
This is the video I never imagined might exist. It's such a gift to new doc filmmakers who have so many things to learn at once. I knew I needed to be doing something along these lines for my projects, but wasn't quite sure how to do it. Thanks, Joshua.
Hey glad it helped in some way! Keep going!
Extremely helpful stuff. I get overwhelmed anytime a video I produce gets above 10-12 minutes, so I can see why keeping hyper organized like this would be key. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Yeah it's totally important. The hardest thing to learn with long form edits is slowing down to take big broad brushstrokes first before getting stuck in the details.
Joshua Kirk thanks mate. I am watching from Zimbabwe. Please elaborate more on the theme based sequences and how you build the flow how do you rearrange the interview select bites and then putting on the master timeline
Hey Colbert - Hello from New Zealand! Thanks for the comment. I will have to make a part two for this and expand on those items more :-)
This information is insanely crucial and your workflow is godly my dude! The company I work at is transitioning into Davinci from FCPX and we've been pretty stumped at coming up with a solid workflow. Huge stuff here
I do a lot of wedding videography and I am definitely going to utilize these tips. Just found your channel and you have a lot of great content on Davinci. SUBBED!
Awesome! Thank you!
Really great tutorial, loved it! Thanks :) Looking forward for your creative editing workflow advices.
I will definitely do a part 2 in the near future. Thanks for the comment :-)
Very impressive. Have yet to see any other doco editorial breakdowns this well done. You deserve a cookie!
Glad it was helpful!
OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDD!!! I am overwhelmed just by seeing your Da Vinci Resolve Timeline. Let alone the Raw data you have.
Haha, yes it’s a lot.
I'm already feeling a bit overwhelmed. However, i really like how detailed it is. This is the kind of video i was searching for. Thanks a lot Joshua! :)
Thank you. Just take little steps and do one thing at a time you'll get there!
I found this extremely helpful, thank you Joshua!
I really appreciate this. I have been trying to implement best practices early on in learning Resolve. This definitely helps. Thank you.
The reasoning behind your organization and your very clear explanation absolutely amazes me. It's absolutely amazing how you can identify any place where a word is spoken and then use them as you want. My hat is definitely off, man. Stellar work.
Great to hear, thanks for the kind words.
OMG! Thanks for this incredibly in-depth walkthrough!
Cheers!
This has been a huge help for someone just starting out with Davinci. Overkill for my current project but I implemented some of the ideas nonetheless in preparation for larger videos in the future. Much appreciated!
Great to hear! Thanks for the watch.
Hey Joshua, thank you for sharing your workflow. Some gold in there, it is appreciated. All the best as you continue to create
Thanks so much for watching!
The amount of work put into documentaries is impressive! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for commenting!
Excellent. Subscribed. Will never need such a detailed organization myself, but the video is chock full of ideas that I will be able to use. I’m no stranger to large, formal, hierarchies so I was pleased to see yours. Huge amount of work but without that insight into what you have available it would be difficult put the documentary together. Just an amazing narration as well. Thank you.
This is insanely helpful, Josh. Forever grateful. Thanks
Appreciate it, glad it was helpful.
Learned. a lot and I appreciate your breakdown of your process!
Thanks Edward 🙌
Amazing tutorial on Organizing Footage and Project Workflow, please make a video on how to storyborad all the ideas for making the First Cut which will further refined to Final Video. Thanks
This video has added the most value to my workflow this week, thank you for your detailed and phenomenal organization skills! I've just completed 6 interviews that will really benefit from the edit index / marker approach you've shared here. Keep up the great content!
Cheers, thanks mate.
Hey Joshua, not only loved your video but also watched the documentary to see what you achieved with your workflow. Amazing Job, congrats! I am trying to make the footage organisation of a personal project way better, inspired by your tips.
Awesome, thanks so much!
Amazing. Using your workflow for my first short documentary.
Epic, have fun with it!
this is great -- exactly the guidance I needed. Really looking forward to a Part 2 on your detailed approach putting it all together -- and your thoughts on how you might use the new Speed Editor/Cut-Page on future projects.Thanks so much!
Hi Dan, Thanks for the comment - I will defiantly put together a part 2 soon :-)
@@JoshuaKirkNZ And please offer a way so we can show our appreciation (beer/coffee/Patreon, etc.) -- definitely want to say thanks for your generosity sharing your craft.
This helps a lot, and it's so clearly explained. Thank you !!
Wow what a great video! Thanks for making this, very helpful!
No worries!
Amazing video, I cant wait for the second part. I suscribe to your channel in this moment. Keep going and congratulations for your channel. Greets from Mexico.
That means a lot Serch - Thanks for the sub - More videos to come real soon!
Hi Joshua, many thanks for your fantastic description how you have organized your documentary.
Hey thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you for this intimate insight and sharing of knowledge...it melted my brain, but damn was it worth it! Incredibly humbled by your skill and tenacity with editing and organization. I have recently been studying Francis Coppola in film school and have watched some videos about Walter Murch talking about editing Apocalypse Now and having literally 7 Tons worth of film to sift through and edit, when you hit us with the 26 terabytes of footage that is instantly where my brain snapped to. Very impressive work, so many superstars behind the scenes when bringing a piece of film to life and you are certainly one of them!
Thanks so much Brianna, Glad it helped bring some insight behind the scenes!
Was looking for something to prepare for interview edits. Great info! Thanks
Cheers!
I'm just starting my video editing journey and oh my gosh this was insanely helpful, thank you so much. I have been using Premier for about 18 months and decided to switch to DaVinci Resolve, still at the phase where where it's very overwhelming - I'm pretty inexperienced but you have given me a great direction to start in. thanks!
Thanks - all the best for the journey into DaVinci!
This is literally the most insane project that I've ever seen, jesus
Looking forward for part 2
Haha! Yeah it's chunky but it was built over months of gathering footage for this project.
What an informative and useful video. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge 👏👏🙏
Appreciate it thanks!
This was so helpful for me. Especially as a self-taught editor. Thank you so much!
You’re welcome, glad it was helpful!
Thanks so much dude! This got me started in Resolve :)
Great to hear!
Great video, the best Ive seen organizational themed. Writing from Mexico we are starting a Docu shoot, so this helps a lot. Will see part 2 with answers see if my questions are there
Yeaahh This is soooo helpful! Thank you for making this video.
Solid content. Thanks from America
Thanks for watching, from NZ!
Fantastic information! I’m working on my first long video and struggling to organize the material. Great info!
Glad it helped!
This is so good! Thank you for the video
Glad you liked it!
Amazing, thank you for sharing this!
Pleasure Aram!
Fantastic work
🙏 Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge.
Glad it was helpful!
I really want to learn your Shortcut - System. Somehow the link to your preset doesnt work anymore. Do you think you could refresh that? You would help me a lot. I will leave a tip for sure. @@JoshuaKirkNZ
Very, very helpful information. Definitely a professional way of oganising the project. Your video was straight forward and easy to follow. Well done Josh :)
Thanks Jesse. Appreciate it
Joshua this is so amazing. I just watched the whole film and every aspect of it is so great. Wonderful cinematography, excellent music choice, great story (A-roll selection). Simply just wow! I don't want to mention level of organization in edit section because it's way above mine so hats off. So inspirational production. Huge fan here!
Hey Karol thanks so much for the love 🙌 and appreciate you taking the time to watch the whole piece! What would you like to see more of in the future?
@@JoshuaKirkNZ This is really big project so I think you could do the whole series about that. Pre-production section (all about talking with client, location scouting, storyboarding etc. / production section - gear, crew, your vision, explenation about composition, your techniques with outdoor lightning / Post-production section exactly like this one, something about color, something about audio etc - if you hired people for specific job consider record video with them.
I watch youtube alot. I am using it mostly to learn something new, looking for great creative artists and discover their technics. This video is definitly something on higher level than begginer or even intermediate so this is why I'm here and why I watched whole film. it's up to you what kind of audience you want to hit and what level of knowledge to share but if it's someghing advanced I stay ✌️
Hi Joshua, I just landed to your channel and apparently by chance this is what I am looking for in how to organize my workflow by categorizing each and every shots and recording into specific clean folders and bins which my current sucks! Thanks for this and will be applying this tutorial to my next small editing projects. Wow, this was done a year ago ~ Subscribed!
🙌 Glad it helped you, thanks for the sub!
I've been editing for years but never really looked at any tutorials on how to attack edits, and have been inventing and improving my workflow on the go. I am currently editing a documentary with about 15 one-hour interviews, and I'm quite happy to see my workflow is very similar to yours.
I still learned a lot in your video though, especially about the transcription part. I usually export the interview sequence, upload it on UA-cam and wait for it to automatically transcribe the interview. I can then export the file with timings, and then search for a specific word in that file to find in the timeline after. A bit of a longer process, but it's free! Will definitely give Simon Says a go in the future though, that Edit Index technique is amazing.
Thanks for the video!
I had a similar workflow to yours (UA-cam transcription), if you take the resulting SRT file and convert it to markers in an EDL (using the free website en.editingtools.io/) - the result will be the searchable edit index that is shown in this workflow. To speed things up I generate the SRT from Adobe Premiere (using the new transcription / caption features) instead of uploading / waiting for UA-cam. I hope this helps in some way!
Great Tip!
Amazing!!! I just stumbled upon you! Such thought on the organization of videos, interviews, etc. It has expanded my mind! Also, I subscribed and gave you a thumbs-up!.
Wow thanks for this! Appreciate the sub :-)
@@JoshuaKirkNZ I just want to say again, how delighted I am with finding your channel. I listened to 2 hrs of the Blackmagic tutorial and still had some editing process questions. I listened again to your earlier 5 tips, and it made sense; I believe you have found your nitch for you are an excellent communicator! I wish you the best of success!
The amount of footage you have is purely insane!
How do you not get overwhelmed when selecting the moments to include?
I personally find footage selection and take selection one of the hardest aspects of editing, and I have much-much less footage than you: some clips are definitely bad, but quite a lot contend to be included and it's hard to decide.
Definitely waiting for part 2!
Thanks Igor! Appreciate the comment. I think i'll release a video about this soon!
You're a JEDI KNIGHT!!!!! Holy crap, this is awesome!!
Haha Thanks Matt!
Impressive documentary. Overwhelming workflow. I'm just trying to make better UA-cam videos. Thanks for the workflow pointers.
Thanks for watching, hope it helped in some way.
I really learned a lot from this. Thank you.
Your welcome, thanks for watching.
Great tutorial!!! Thanks
You're welcome!
Thank you for a great video. I would however love to know more about using Simon Says. I have looked at it a number of times and decided not to use it but the way you are using it I am sure would change my mind. Thanks Dave
Thanks Dave - I definitely think it is worth circling back around to software after a year or so if they weren't quite right at the time because they develop so fast. I am using a range of different services now including Descript and Rev.com for captioning which have great transcription features, but importing transcripts as markers is a special feature that I was using here with Simon Says.
@@JoshuaKirkNZ I have used many of the paid and unpaid transcription services including Rev and UA-cam on my Jack Hargreaves programmes due to not finding Simon Says very accurate but following seeing you video this weekend I gave SS another try and Wow it is now the best I have tried. It was as good or possibly slightly better than REV paid service. I might have just been lucky but it was picking up words I was having trouble understanding in Jack’s chatty voice. He didn’t work from notes or scripts but just talked over the film inserts. What I still need to sit down and work out is the way SS exports the markers as I was in a bit of a rush to get the programme up on Sunday and that is why being lazy I thought maybe you could help explain this a bit more in depth especially as I cannot find anyone else including SS who has really done this.
By the way love your videos and would also love to see how you actually physically do the edit with all the timelines. I presume you put up the time line you are taking the shots from and then copy them into your main edit timeline.
Very helpful thank you!!
🙌
excellent video ! thank you very much
You are welcome.
thank you so much for sharing!
Thanks!
Loved this video! I see you haven't posted a lot of tutorial videos, relatively speaking. But you should. Hope you'll be posting more.
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm definitely trying to balance this UA-cam thing with real productions - Harder than I anticipated haha :-)
Thank you very much, this is really helpful :)
You're welcome!
This is really great. It helped me so much with editing my first feature length doc with months of footage. I did come across a Bug where Davinci stops responding when there are too many timeline markers - this bug still hasn't been fix since v16 up to the current 18.1.3, unfortunately, so just be warned. Otherwise, thanks so much again.
Hey Kirk, thanks for this. I think this has been fixed now with 18.5.
Hey Joshua, big thanks, this is super helpful. Im working on short documentary project and switched from fcpx to davinci - been looking for a guide like this to get basic understanding how to approach the workflow.. I would like to ask for video that would explain a bit more the actual way you organize footage and create bins with timelines etc… kind of thoughts behind the workflow… thanks again, you got a new subscriber
stoked it was helpful. Great suggestion for future videos!
Super helpful!!
Thanks so much.
Great video, thanks for posting! I’ve been in the game for over 30yrs and this method puts me to shame. Well done, liked and subscribed.
thank you so much! 😊
I have been amazed by your content since this is such an outstanding tutorial from out there and therefore you earn a new subscriber. Anyways, can you please make a video about keyboard shortcuts and your workspace in Davinci? That would be really helpful for us to edit faster and save time in editing. I'm really looking forward to that.
Awesome, thank you! - Coming Soon!
Thank you!
You're welcome!
I would be intrigued to know, if anything, would your process or completion of the project have changed, and how , with the improvements DaVinci 18.5 release has now provided…? Love this video as it has provided me with so much valuable information and perspective..
watched the entire Doc. Absolutely brilliant. Curious as to the Hard Drives you are using as well as the specs on your edit machine. Thanks, Anthony NYC
Thanks for watching and appreciate the kind words. I’ve made this video which walks through our data setup. It’s mostly the same today with a few tweaks. ua-cam.com/video/zzWK2zOi4Sc/v-deo.html
amazing organization. love your content. would love to see how you manage proxies / keep such a huge 4k workflow going without turning the computer into a hellfire machine
agree!
Great suggestion for a new video. A few pointers off the top of my head with big projects in DaVinci resolve are:
- Use a PostgreSQL Database instead of a disk database (It always performs better)
- Host the database on the network from a different machine. (This takes some strain off your edit machine and can focus just on editing)
- Working off a fast server really helps - see my other video here - ua-cam.com/video/zzWK2zOi4Sc/v-deo.html
- Computer RAM is important with large projects. I have 128GB in the 27" iMac.
I'll be sure to make a video about this in the future!
What a beast 🤯👍
Great Video! Would love to know more about your technical workflow: proxies, memory management with so many timelines, etc. I'd like to make the jump from Avid for my next doc, but with long form I have always a bit scared to try it.
Jumping to DaVinci was a little difficult when we moved over as well 2-3 years ago. at the time the edit page wasn't as robust as it is now. If you do it, i'd suggest just committing 100% so you can start to learn all the nuances of the interface and how it performs. If you are only editing, and passing the finishing stages to other departments then I totally see the argument to stay with Avid. For us as a commercial studio the seemless workflow between edit, colour, sound, VFX is priceless and worth a few sacrifices in the edit page :-)
Thank you so much! 🙏
Cheers Sam!
You completely changed my approach to dealing with footage. I can’t go back now.
This saved me so much stress and overwhelm. I couldn’t quite get the Simon says to link up in davinci but I used the app and just searched key words on there and picked up timecodes so it was a great work around- I’m happy with that for now.
Super handy having it on my phone for other shoots on the same project too because you can ask more about specific bits they said in previous interviews. I found that it makes the interviewee feel like you really do listen and builds a lot of trust there.
Thank you is not enough, I feel a serious step up in the content I can create because I’m not lost in hours of footage. Preciseness is priceless.
Priceless.
@@sam.oates_ Epic! Glad it has helped a lot mate!