Final Cut Pro to DaVinci Resolve Workflow for Grades Clients Can Approve
Both hops in this workflow are an export and an upload, since only Premiere has a PlayPause panel. Here is how I prep the FCPXML, run conform checks, and stack the offline cut and the grade on one card.
The FCPXML I handed my colorist in the second year of my agency cost me an entire weekend, and I think about it every time somebody asks how a Final Cut Pro to DaVinci Resolve workflow should actually run. We had a brand film locked in Final Cut and a colorist working in Resolve, and at eleven at night I exported the XML into a shared drive folder I had very confidently named FINAL. What I had not done, right, was look at what the timeline was made of, which was a good third compound clips, retimes all through the B roll and two speed ramped interviews sitting inside a multicam.
So the conform came back wrong in all the quiet places, and because I had also sent the client a download link from that same drive, they approved a grade on Sunday that was riding on a picture we had changed on Friday. That cost me a weekend of re-conforming and one very very awkward Monday call, and to be very honest the grade itself was fine, because what actually broke was that nobody could tell which picture a note belonged to.
The way I run it now is deliberately boring. Every hop between Final Cut and Resolve ends with a review copy going up on the same PlayPause card, so the offline cut and the graded export stack on top of each other as versions. Does that make sense, right, because a bad conform costs me an afternoon to fix, whereas a client approving the wrong picture costs a week and a bit of trust.
How the Final Cut Pro to DaVinci Resolve workflow works
Both hops in this workflow are an export and an upload, and that is the first thing to accept, right. Premiere Pro has our panel inside the app so comments land next to the timeline, whereas on the Final Cut and Resolve side you export, upload, review in the browser and carry the notes back into the editor yourself, so I plan around that from day one.
The order never changes for me. You lock the offline in Final Cut, put a review copy in front of the client and finish the picture, and only once that picture is signed off does the FCPXML to Resolve hop happen at all. The colorist conforms, grades and exports, and the graded master goes up as the next version on the same card the offline sat on, so the whole offline edit to grade review lives under one link. Everything I do through PlayPause for Final Cut Pro and everything the colorist does through PlayPause for DaVinci Resolve points back at that card.
If you came here from Premiere the logic is identical but the plumbing differs, right, and I wrote that version up in Premiere to Resolve review checkpoints, along with what switching to Resolve changes for client review. Here the discipline has to live in the process instead of in the software, so basically no grade begins until the picture has been approved on a link I actually control.
FCPXML in a shared drive, a separate download link for the client, and nobody sure which picture a note belongs to.
One card per deliverable, the offline cut and the graded export stacked as versions, every comment pinned to a frame.
Preparing the Final Cut timeline for a clean FCPXML handoff
In my experience nearly all conform pain gets baked in before anybody clicks export. So I duplicate the project as something like BrandFilm_MV3_ForGrade and break apart every compound clip and every multicam in that copy, because whatever lives inside a compound reaches Resolve as one flattened lump or not at all. Retimes stay in, but I log each one by timecode, since a constant speed change usually translates fine while a speed ramp very often does not.
The timecode mismatch is the one that catches almost everybody coming from Final Cut. A new Final Cut project usually starts at 00:00:00:00 while plenty of colorists work from 01:00:00:00, so the burned in numbers on your reference and the numbers in the Resolve timeline end up an hour apart. You see what I mean here, every note written against one set of numbers points nowhere on the other, so I set the project's start timecode to 01:00:00:00 before either export.
The XML points at the original files rather than Final Cut's proxies, so the colorist needs the camera originals on a drive with identical folder names. Anything imported with copy to library lives inside the library bundle, so I consolidate the project media out to a plain folder first, because buried or renamed folders break relinking quietly, right, and the colorist only finds out an hour into the session.
Then I export from File, Export XML. I'm pretty sure current versions of Resolve read the newer XML bundle fine, but if the colorist's copy refuses it, pick an older XML version from the menu in that same dialog, which Apple documents in the Final Cut Pro user guide. The reference export matters even more than the XML, a flat QuickTime of the locked picture with burned in timecode that the colorist conforms against shot by shot. I cover the encode in Final Cut review export settings, and the rest of the envelope is in my colorist handoff package.
- Break compound and multicam clips apart in a duplicated project
- Log every retime and speed ramp by timecode
- Set the project start timecode to one hour before exporting
- Consolidate original media into plain folders the colorist can mount
- Export a flat reference QuickTime with burned in timecode
Conform checks in Resolve before grading starts
The colorist imports the XML through File, Import, Timeline in DaVinci Resolve, and I ask them to leave the automatic project settings option on in the import dialog. That way the frame rate and resolution come from the timeline instead of a guess, because once media is in a Resolve project the frame rate gets really really awkward to change. Then the colorist proves that what landed is the film I locked, and confirms it in writing.
To make that concrete with illustrative numbers, say the locked film runs 4 minutes 52 seconds at 25 fps with 118 video clips, starting at 01:00:00:00. The Resolve timeline should show the same 118 video clips, and if it shows 112 then six things never came across, which usually means a compound I forgot to break. It should also end at 01:04:52:00, and if it ends at 01:04:51:22 you are three frames short, which is usually a transition that did not translate or a retime that rounded differently.
Then comes a scrub for offline media, which Resolve shows in red, and for any clip at a different frame rate from the timeline. Finally the colorist links my reference QuickTime as the offline reference and wipes against it for every retime and dissolve, which on a five minute film takes maybe fifteen minutes. The catch here is that a check living in a chat thread is worth nothing, so the colorist posts the conform confirmation as a comment on the offline version in PlayPause, where it stays attached to the picture it describes.
Uploading the offline cut and the grade to the same card
This is the part that actually fixed my weekend problem. The locked offline goes up as MV1 on a card named for the deliverable, with a first comment saying the color is temporary so nobody approves my rough correction as the look. The client opens the link in a browser with no account and no install, their comments stick to the exact frame, and they can draw on the frame to point at one corner of the shot. When the grade comes back it goes up as MV2 on that same card, right, so the whole MV1 comment history sits underneath it.
Version stacks come with every plan from Creator up, and so does the who watched view, which shows me who opened the link, when and from which city. When a grade approval sits untouched for two days, that tells me whether the producer has watched it and gone quiet or simply has not opened it yet. If the colorist is a freelancer outside my workspace, guest version upload on Agency and up lets them add the graded export to the card themselves, with their name and email collected.
Watch link lifetime on a grade that drags, since Creator share links last 30 days with the files expiring, Agency links run for 90 days and Enterprise links never expire. The naming side of keeping the stack readable is in avoiding version confusion during grading.
Comparing offline and graded versions side by side
Clients are not colorists, right, but they do have an opinion about whether the film looks right, and that opinion is far more useful when they can see what actually changed. On Agency and above there is side by side version compare, so I put MV1 and MV2 next to each other and walk the producer through offline against graded, shot by shot. If you are new to briefing a colorist, the background on color grading explains what is being done to each shot.
The vague note is what this really kills. For instance, a producer might write that the film feels darker than expected, which nobody can act on, whereas a producer who sees the offline beside the grade will write that the skin on one shot has gone a little cool, and the colorist fixes that in minutes. The version compare for documentary editors page shows the layout properly, and the honest way to present the change is in a believable before and after.
A client who sees the offline and the grade together stops guessing and starts giving you notes you can act on.
Routing color notes to the colorist and edit notes to the editor
A grade review always collects two kinds of notes, right, and mixing them is how projects rot. Half the comments are about color and the other half are somebody finally noticing a cut point they never liked, which is not the colorist's problem at all. So I sort them with @mentions, color notes to the colorist and picture notes to me, and threaded replies keep each conversation on its own frame instead of spread across email, two WhatsApp groups and so on.
The client and the producer come in on the share link without an account, while the colorist sits in the workspace as an Editor and my producer as a Manager. Custom statuses on the card such as Needs Grade, In Grade and Approved show where the deliverable is without a status meeting, and from Creator upward every comment can also drop into a Slack channel so my team sees notes the same day.
On Agency the AI transcription gives me a clickable transcript, so I jump straight to the line somebody means. Playbooks hold the per client style rules, and trust me on any level, a Playbook that says this client likes warm skin saves the colorist rediscovering it on every project. I mapped where grade sign off sits in the wider chain in colorist sign off before render and in approval stages in video production.
Use @mentions so color notes reach the colorist and picture notes reach the editor, and let custom statuses carry the state of the deliverable so nobody has to ask.
Frequently asked questions
Can I send a DaVinci Resolve grade back into Final Cut Pro?
You can round trip it, since Resolve can export an XML back to Final Cut, but I mostly do not anymore. If the picture is genuinely locked, the cleaner path is letting Resolve render the graded master and treating that as the deliverable, because every extra trip through an XML is another chance for a retime or a transition to shift. I only round trip when the edit is still moving, and then I accept checking the conform twice.
Why is my Resolve timeline an hour off from the Final Cut timecode?
Almost always because the Final Cut project started at 00:00:00:00 while the colorist works from 01:00:00:00. Nothing is actually broken, right, but every note written against one set of numbers lands an hour away on the other. I set the Final Cut project's start timecode to 01:00:00:00 before exporting both the XML and the reference, and then the burned in numbers, the conformed timeline and the client's notes all agree.
Does PlayPause work inside DaVinci Resolve itself?
No, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Premiere Pro has a panel that puts comments inside the app and jumps the playhead when you click one, but nothing like that exists for Resolve, Final Cut or After Effects, so the loop is export, upload, review, then work the notes in the editor. In practice that adds one export per round, and the review side behaves exactly the same.
Which plan do I need to compare the offline cut and the grade?
Side by side version compare starts on Agency at $19 a month, which is also where guest version upload comes in, handy when a freelance colorist uploads the grade. Version stacks, so MV1 and MV2 on one card, start on Creator at $9 a month. Pricing is flat per workspace rather than per member, so adding the colorist inside your member limit costs nothing extra, and the client never needs an account.
How do I stop the client approving an old version of the cut?
I stopped sending files, basically, and moved to one card per deliverable with one link, where every new export goes up as the next version on that stack. The client keeps coming back to the same card and the newest version sits on top. That single change is what ended the problem for me, right, since there is simply no older file sitting in a folder for anybody to open by accident.
If the grade on your next project matters at all, the cheapest fix is to stop letting the offline and the graded master live in two different places. Every plan comes with a 7-day free trial, so you can put one real handoff through it first, and the plan comparison on our pricing page shows what each tier carries at the end of the day.
So yeah. That's my way of saying it.
Saumyajit co-founded PlayPause after years watching review and approval quietly eat creative teams' deadlines. He writes about the workflow side of video, feedback, versioning, and getting to a clean sign-off.
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