TillyGen and DaVinci Resolve

What this is about

DaVinci Resolve spans pages — Media, Edit, Color, Deliver — and its Media Pool is the database underneath them all. That database is the natural docking point for pre-production data: Resolve can import clip metadata from CSV files into the Media Pool, matching rows to clips, which means scene, shot and description columns prepared from the TillyGen shot list can travel onto the footage itself. Smart bins then sort by that metadata, the colorist filters by scene for consistent looks, and the plan's structure survives all the way to the grade.

An integration is good when nobody talks about it any more: the data is where it is needed and nobody exports anything.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Resolve's metadata import takes CSV files into the Media Pool — shot list columns from TillyGen become searchable clip fields
• Smart bins built on scene metadata sort themselves as footage arrives, keeping plan structure alive without manual filing
• The colorist filters clips by scene field and grades a location's shots as a family instead of hunting them across a timeline
• Look references collected in the TillyGen storyboard give the grade its target before the first node is built

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Prepare a metadata CSV from the TillyGen shot list — scene, shot, description columns shaped to match clip naming from set.
2. Import footage into the Media Pool, then run the metadata import so the plan's fields attach to the clips they describe.
3. Build smart bins on the scene field; from here the pool organizes itself as material lands, mirroring the plan.
4. Cut on the Edit page with plan-structured bins, and hand the Color page a scene filter instead of a flat clip pile.
5. Grade against the storyboard's look references and deliver — the export naming can reuse the plan's shot numbers for traceability.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Clip names from set that match nothing in the plan — the metadata CSV cannot attach, and someone tags four hundred clips by hand
• Grading before sorting: the colorist matches shots by eye across the timeline that a scene filter would have grouped in seconds

With TillyGen

The plan's structure enters Resolve once, as metadata, and then works for every page downstream. TillyGen stays the source of that structure; Resolve is where it meets the footage.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.