Official Basher Films Final Cut Pro Sequence Prep Specs for Color Correction

Here they are, the official Final Cut Pro project Prep Specifications for Basher Films. I've included a link below to download the PDF directly as well. Take a look, as these specs will greatly aid in getting your FCP project smoothly in to DaVinci Resolve quickly and easily (saving you TIME and MONEY, and me a HEADACHE).

Official Basher Films Final Cut Pro Spec Sheet PDF: http://www.basherfilms.com/pdfs/Basher_FCP_Project_Prep_Specs_2011_PDF.pdf (right click and "save as" or "save target" to download)

Also be sure to check out the "how to" video made by yours truly, found here: http://www.vimeo.com/19235313

COLOR CORRECTION PREP SPEC SHEET FOR FINAL CUT PRO PROJECTS

1. BACKUP YOUR PROJECT - Please make a backup copy of your original final project and your final sequence and keep it somewhere safe (as in don’t bring it to basher films!).

2. CONSOLIDATE VIDEO TRACKS TO A SINGLE TRACK USING - Take your new copied project and/or sequence and consolidate all your video tracks down to 1 VIDEO TRACK with any extra media such as stills, VFX shots, text generators, etc, on TRACK 2. Please be sure that all your master media for color correction is consolidated down to these two tracks as it greatly aids in preparing your sequence for color correction. (if you’ve used superimposition effects or have layered video effects you may leave those on Track 2 if consolidation down to 1 track is prohibitive). Please be sure that you’re final sequence is “EDL compatible” and uses CUTS AND DISSOLVES ONLY (try to change any opacity transitions to cross dissolves as those translate better for color correction). Please see a “how to” video for this process made by Chris at: http://www.vimeo.com/19235313.

3. NOTE ALL FILTER EFFECTS , SPEED CHANGES, AND STILLS - Please make a not of any shots that have a Final Cut Pro video filter on them (including simple size changes, etc) as well as shots with any speed changes or still images. Ideally these shots would be re-export as consolidated quicktime files by using the “export – quicktime movie” command and then bringing the new “flattened quicktime back in to the final cut sequence and replacing them in to track 01. Regardless, any shots that are not re-exported in this fashion must be made known to Basher Films.

4. TRANSFER PROJECT TO EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE - Please take this new consolidated sequence and all its referred media and transfer to an external hard drive (NO USB DRIVES PLEASE, either firewire 400/800, or ESATA) for delivery to Basher Films. Please refer to the media manager instructions in step 5 for instructions on how to do this.

5. USE THE “MEDIA MANAGER” FUNCTION - Please use the “MEDIA MANAGER” function in Final Cut Pro to media manage your final sequence (and only your final sequence) to an external hard drive (please do not use USB hard drives as they are notoriously slow, firewire 400, firewire 800, or ESATA will work much better). Select “copy media”, use 2 second handles for your clips, and direct all the new files to the external hard drive.

6. DOUBLE CHECK MEDIA ON DRIVE - Please double check and make sure that the new project and the project files are both located on the external hard drive that you will be bringing to Basher Films and that all the relevant media is linked to them.