CASE STUDY

Music Video Post-Production: Color, VFX, Sound Design

Full post-production pipeline for a 4-minute music video. Color grading in DaVinci Resolve with a 7-node tree per shot, 47 VFX shots composited in After Effects, and sound design in Pro Tools. Delivered in 18 calendar days.

KKirillFounder & Creative Director

4:12

Duration

18 days

Delivery Time

VFX Shots

Color Grades

Project Overview

Client Brief

(replace with actual client name and project details) A music artist approached BLKRIP with 2.4 TB of raw footage for a 4-track EP release. The lead single blended trap and alternative R&B, and the visual direction called for a high-contrast, desaturated look with selective color pops on neon practicals. The deadline was set to align with the single's release on Spotify and Apple Music. Key deliverables: a 4K master for YouTube, a vertical 9:16 cut for TikTok and Instagram Reels, and a 2-minute behind-the-scenes edit for the artist's Patreon.

Technical Approach

Ingest & Organize

2.4 TB of footage ingested from a Sony FX6 (S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine) and a Sony A7S III B-camera. Proxy workflow at 1920x1080 DNxHR LB for real-time playback in Resolve. Dailies synced with Zoom F6 field recorder audio using timecode. Three shoot locations: a warehouse interior, a rooftop at night, and an exterior alley sequence.

Offline Edit

Rough cut assembled in DaVinci Resolve Studio 19. Director collaboration over 3 revision rounds, each with timestamped notes via Frame.io. Final locked cut at 4:12 with a 24fps timeline. Assembly-to-lock took 5 business days.

Online & Conform

Full-resolution conform in DaVinci Resolve Studio 19. VFX plates exported to After Effects 2025 for compositing. Round-trip workflow with ProRes 4444 with alpha channel for composited shots.

Final Master & QC

QC pass on a calibrated BenQ SW272U in Rec.709 (BT.709). Loudness normalized to -14 LUFS integrated with -1 dBTP true peak, matching YouTube's loudness normalization target for music uploads. Final masters exported in 3 formats: ProRes 422 HQ master, H.265 for YouTube at 45 Mbps, and H.264 vertical cut at 1080x1920.

Color Grading

The color grade was built in DaVinci Resolve using a 7-node tree structure per shot. Node 01 (BALANCE) established exposure and white balance using Parade RGB alignment. Node 02 (CONTRAST) applied an S-curve via Custom Curves with blacks pulled to IRE 7 and highlights capped at IRE 95. Node 03 (SKIN) used an HSL qualifier on skin tones with 25% hue softness to protect face rendering across all grades. Node 04 (LOOK) applied the creative look: a teal-orange split via Hue vs Sat (orange +15%, teal +12%, green -10%) with Lift shifted toward teal (+0.015 blue, -0.008 red). Node 05 (SKY) applied a power window with tracking on exterior shots to push sky toward cyan. Node 06 (GRAIN) added Kodak 5219 film grain at 0.9 density using Resolve's built-in Film Grain effect. Node 07 (FINISH) held a soft vignette at 0.45 feather and per-shot fixes. A total of 6 unique grades were created across the warehouse, rooftop, alley, performance, transition, and BTS scenes.

Sound Design

(replace with actual audio details) Sound design was completed in Pro Tools 2024.6. The stereo mix was provided by the artist's mixing engineer at 48 kHz / 24-bit WAV. BLKRIP's sound design layer included: atmospheric rain foley layered over the warehouse sequences (3 rain textures at varying intensity), transitional whooshes synced to 8 beat-drop edit points, ambient room tone for the 3 dialogue sections, and a reversed cymbal swell leading into the final chorus. A total of 34 sound design elements were placed across 12 cue points. Final audio deliverables were bounced to WAV 48 kHz / 24-bit and embedded into the video master.

VFX

CG lens flare burst at 1:24 synced to the snare hit — Video Copilot Optical Flares with manual tracking in Mocha AE
Parallax photo animation on 8 production stills for the flashback sequence at 2:15–2:45 — 3D Camera Tracker in AE with depth map separation
Screen replacement on a phone prop at 0:58 displaying the single's cover art — Mocha AE corner pin with color match and grain overlay
Particle system (volumetric fog) composited over 12 warehouse performance shots — Trapcode Particular with 600 particles/sec, gravity -80, turbulence 100
Roto and paint cleanup on 240 frames for a visible rig cable in the rooftop sequence — Roto Brush 2 for initial matte, manual mask refinement on 18 problem frames

Delivery Specs

Master: 4K (3840x2160) / Apple ProRes 422 HQ / 23.976fps / Rec.709. YouTube deliverable: H.265 at 45 Mbps, -14 LUFS integrated, -1 dBTP. Vertical (9:16) cut at 1080x1920 for TikTok and Instagram Reels. Behind-the-scenes edit: 2:08 at 1920x1080 H.264. All files delivered via Frame.io on the scheduled release date.

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Project Details

What was the total post-production timeline?

18 calendar days from footage ingest to final delivery. Edit lock at day 5, VFX completion at day 12, color grade at day 15, sound design and final QC at day 18. Two rounds of director revisions were accommodated during the edit phase.

How many VFX shots were in the final cut?

47 VFX shots across 6 scenes. Breakdown: 12 fog/composite shots in the warehouse, 8 parallax animation frames, 15 roto/cleanup fixes, 5 screen replacements, 4 lens flare effects, and 3 sky enhancements.

What color grading workflow was used?

DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 with a 7-node pipeline per shot: balance, contrast, skin protection, creative look, sky treatment, film grain, and finishing. Footage shot on Sony FX6 in S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine. Six unique scene-specific grades created with a shared base look.

Were there any technical challenges?

Mixed lighting in the warehouse location (tungsten practicals at 3200K combined with blue LED strips at 6500K) required separate HSL qualifiers for each light source and a shared color space transform node. The rooftop night footage was shot at ISO 12800 on the A7S III, requiring Resolve's temporal noise reduction (Motion Range: Medium, 4 reference frames) before the creative grade.

How was audio delivered?

Final stereo mix at -14 LUFS integrated, -1 dBTP (YouTube spec). Sound design elements delivered as a separate stems package in WAV 48 kHz / 24-bit alongside the embedded video master. The stems package allows the artist's engineer to remixed for future platform-specific versions.

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