How I make DAILIES?

When you’re deep in production, dailies are the first glimpse into what’s been captured—your first look at how the story is taking shape. As a Colorist and Post Supervisor, I’ve developed a dailies workflow that strikes the right balance between efficiency, image integrity, and clear communication with editorial. In this post, I’ll walk you through how I create dailies that are color-accurate, synced, organized, and ready to drop into the edit timeline—so that directors, editors, and producers can stay focused on the story, not the tech.

1. Importing renamed and organized OCF and audio files to Resolve.

Before anything else, I make sure the Original Camera Files (OCF) and audio have been properly backed up, renamed, and organized according to the project’s folder structure. This is critical for maintaining clarity and avoiding confusion down the line—especially when working with large volumes of footage.

Once the file structure is in place, I import both the video and sound into DaVinci Resolve. I keep things clean by mirroring the on-disk folder hierarchy in the Media Pool. This keeps the project manageable and ensures that any relinking later in the pipeline is seamless.

This step sets the foundation for everything that follows: organized media means faster syncing, fewer errors, and a much smoother conform later on.

1. Audio Sync based on timecode or waveform; depends on your footage.
2. Creating timelines with all the synced footage from the day.
3. Applying Data Burn-in to have metadata visible.
4. Color Correction for Dailies
   1. Groups as recording devices
   2. Small fixes
   3. Cooperation with the Director and DoP.
5. Final Check
6. Delivery – pick easy, fast and light format for your dailies.