1.5

Stage 2: Scanning All Film as DPX Image Sequences
Depending on how the shoot was conducted, you can opt to do a best-light datacine of
just the selects, or of all the camera negative (if you can afford it). The scanned 2K or 4K
digital source media should be saved as DPX or Cineon image sequences.
To track the correspondence between the original still frames and the offline QuickTime
files that you'll create for editing, you should ask for the following:
• A non-drop frame timecode conversion of each frame's number (used in that frame's
filename), saved within the header of each scanned image.
• It can also help to organize all of the scanned frames into separate directories, saving
all the frames from each roll of negative to separate directories (named by roll). This
will help you to keep track of each shot’s roll number later.
Stage 3: Converting DPX Image Sequences to Apple ProRes 4444 QuickTime Files in
Color
Since Final Cut Pro doesn’t work directly with image sequences, you need to create
high-quality, online-resolution QuickTime duplicates using Color before you can begin
editing. Once you’ve done this, it’s a good idea to archive both the original source media
and the converted Apple ProRes 4444 media as safely as possible.
You can use Color to create online-resolution QuickTime versions of each DPX image
sequence you need to use in your edit. To do this, create a new project with the Render
File Type set to QuickTime and the Export Codec set to Apple ProRes 4444. Then, edit all
the shots you want to convert into the Timeline, grade them if necessary, add them to
the Render Queue, and click Start Render.
When you convert the DPX files to offline QuickTime files using Color, the timecode
metadata stored in the header of each DPX frame is copied into the timecode track of
each .mov file that’s created. (If there’s no timecode in the DPX headers, the frame number
in the DPX filename will be converted into timecode, instead. For more information, see
How Does Color Relink DPX/Cineon Frames to an EDL?).
This helps you to maintain the correspondence between the source DPX media and the
Apple ProRes 4444 QuickTime files you’ve created, in case you ever need to go back to
the original media. To make this easier, enter the roll number of each image sequence
into the reel number of the converted QuickTime clip. You can do this in the Final Cut Pro
Browser.
For more information, see Converting Cineon and DPX Image Sequences to QuickTime.
53Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows