A lot of our packages offer a service called “Raw Footage Delivery”. That may eventually changed to something more like “Unedited Footage Delivery”, simply because “Raw Footage” is an industry term that means something else, and our service is offering something different. So it’s a bit confusing for now.

What It Is

Everything we shoot is shot in such a way that a certain amount of post-production processing is required (beyond mere editing) to make it viewable.

At a minimum, the footage needs to go through a color grading pipeline, and then often also an audio mastering pipeline, before it looks anywhere close to production-ready. If we’re doing RFD with your project, we will do this work in broad strokes (so a partial grading pipeline, and partial audio mix and master), upfront (before we start the edit), and then render out every single clip that we got during the production through those pipelines, and make them available to you to download.

So with RFD, the first deliverable that you’ll be recieving will be a massive folder of a bunch of (usually 4K) video clips, that have gone through a batch process which gives them a serviceable color grade and a basic audio pass (if they even have audio), and which haven’t been cut down or compiled. This can sometimes be disconcerting or confusing for you, even if you asked for this service, because you’ll be seeing all the things that we’d normally edit out of any finished product.

So with that in mind, there are some important things to remember when you recieve the Raw Footage Delvierable.

This is the Worst Your Footage Will Ever Look

The color and audio processing done on this footage is done as a batch, with a minimal amount of per-shot grading. So it’s all going to have the same look, and that look will play nicer with some shots than others. If things are blown out, or crushed in shadow, don’t worry. They probably aren’t over/underexposed in the actual RAW files, which we still have. When we go to make your edited deliverables, we will do a second color and audio pass, and we’ll fix all of that (assuming we use those shots).

In addition, there are some effects, filters, and grades which are simply too aggressive to use as part of a batch process. Anything extremely stylized, vignettes, etc. probably won’t be used in the Raw Footage grade even if we’re planning to use it in the Final Edit(s), simply because it would make a significant number of the shots look worse without the proper per-shot fine tuning.

FOOTAGE STABILIZATION is also not done on any of these shots, as it’s always an intensive, per-shot process. If you’re looking at it thinking that our gimbal/steadicam must have been broken, rest assured that it’s not, it’s just that stabilization, like color and sound, also has to be tweaked in post.

So if you’re looking at the footage and thinking “yeah it looks good, but not great”… we know. That’s the point. It will look better.

This is Not the Final Look

Feel free to ask for changes and tweaks going forward. By the time you’re getting RFD, we’ll have already figured out the general look your project will have, and this will be your first time seeing an approximation of it. So feel free to treat it like a first draft in terms of that specific color grading direction.

You’re Welcome

If you’re getting this, hopefully you already know why: it’s all additional fodder for social media content, website background videos, and all the other stock video needs that a modern public figure or business has. It’s high-quality, high-resolution, and ready-made to be mangled into a variety of social-media monstrosities by Capcut, the Instagram Reels Editor, iMovie, or command-line ffmpeg (if you’re as insane as we are) to suit whatever footage needs you have. Feel free to take a stab at adding whatever additional grades, filters, or special effects suit your fancy, and send it out into the world as a way to catch eyes.

Raw Footage FAQs

“I Don’t Like the Color Grade. Can You Redo It?”

No. By this point we will have talked about the grade, and when it comes to the RFD, what you see is what you get. It simply takes so much time and effort to export the full gamut of clips that we get on a normal shoot (even one that only lasts an hour) that going back and making sweeping adjustments, then doing all of the per-clip QC checks, is cost prohibitive.

That said, we’ll be happy to make significant alterations to the look as we begin work on the Final Edit.

“There’s a Problem With This Shot. Can You Tweak It?”

Maybe. We’ll always take notes like this into consideration when editing the Final Deliverables, but if you’re asking for us to tweak that individual raw clip and then re-upload it, it really depends on the shot itself, how many others you need tweaked as well, what the exact request is, etc.. In a lot of cases, we’ll recommend that you use whatever basic video editor you have available to adjust things like brightness, contrast, etc., but please still ask, we might be able to make an exception.

“I Didn’t Ask For This Service.”

On some of our video collection offerings, RFD comes standard, and then we’ll offer customized edits in addition to it. We’ll generally walk you through the process when you’re committing to engage with us.

“Something Else”

Feel free to contact us at (513) 400-3785 or reese@danzermedia.com.