Dailies: Building Bridges Between Production and Post-Production (post-production workflow guide)

Ever wonder how footage shot on set during the day makes it to post-production within hours? That's where the dailies team comes in. We’re the unsung heroes, the essential bridge that connects production to post-production.

Post Production Workflow from Dailies Colorist's Seat

1: Introduction to Dailies & Receiving Footage

Post Production workflow / journey starts when the footage arrives via shuttle drives from the on-set DIT, DAT, or loader. We move swiftly to offload and ingest the footage into industry-standard dailies systems (Baselight, ExD, OSD, DaVinci Resolve, Cortex to name a few I have used), or sometimes, even custom in-house systems.

2: Metadata, Syncing Audio & Primary Color Pass

Once ingest of the footage is done, we dive into metadata, ensuring everything is logged correctly, including notes on any anomalies. This step is commonly referred to as “tagging”. After, we sync audio to the footage, which is normally a straightforward task. However, certain complications can make the task of syncing a manual process, such as the audio timecode does not match the video timecode or the audio metadata has strange and unrecognized characters assigned to the file. On some shows colour is simply applying an established show LUT as well as the CDLs generated onset by the DIT. On a majority of the shows, we dailies colourists perform a primary colour pass to ensure the footage matches perfectly or “cuts together”, as we say. Often, we have to match different makes and models of camera which have very varying different ways of rendering colour and contrast, which always provides a fun challenge.

3: Creating Deliverables & Preparing Reports

Creating deliverables for a variety of platforms is the next step. This includes generating MXF files for editorial, creating Avid bins, prepping screeners for platforms like PIX, FrameIO, or Clear, and sometimes even delivering on-set viewing material for devices as well as creating pictures for the camera department. In rare cases, we even burn DVDs or Blu-rays.

Quality control is key — we watch hours of footage to ensure everything is perfect, making sure that every file is up to par. Meanwhile, all paperwork needs to be compiled, including daily reports from script, camera, audio, DIT, and dailies, and then send out to all departments for distribution.

4: Archiving & Handling Unexpected Issues

Once the deliverables are finalized, we face the final hurdle: archiving. This means we kick off the slow, painstaking process of transferring files to LTO storage, an ancient tape medium that can take up to 48 hours to complete, depending on the size of the data.

And that's just on a normal day — without complications. There are always surprises on set, like an unvetted camera being pulled out of someone’s trunk, which might throw a wrench into the workflow. In such cases, we have to spend time determining if it’s compatible with our system or needs to be transcoded to new masters — all within a tight timeframe, ensuring editorial gets their bins first thing in the morning with their fresh coffee.

5: Wrapping Up & Reflection on the Role

Once the day's footage is processed, sometimes a solo endeavor especially when working remotely at a location without a nearby post facility, we finally upload the dailies package directly to editorial’s storage as well as upload to the screeners. And just like that, everyone in production can wake up and view the fresh footage.

It's a fast-paced, ever-evolving job that requires precision, adaptability, and a keen attention to detail. And while the crew may never know all that goes into getting those shots onto their screens, the dailies team is always there, quietly bridging the gap between creation and post-production magic.

Credit: Stephan Marliss, CSI (Freelance Senior Dailies Colorist | DI Colorist)