What has to survive the dailies handoff
A look, its approval, and the information around it
My Daylight workflow starts with the DIT's report and ends with playback checks. Rendering the pictures is only one part of the job.
The first version of my FilmLight Daylight workflow, written in June 2025, starts with a fairly plain instruction: compare the media arriving at the dailies lab with the DIT's end-of-day report. It ends with another: check the render locations, names, and playback, then export the lab report. Between those two points, a day's photography has to become something another department can trust.
A successful copy doesn't establish a complete delivery
The workflow asks the DIT to back up camera media with checksums during the shooting day. At the lab, it asks for a separate comparison between the received media and the DIT's summary. These checks answer different questions. File integrity matters, but so does knowing whether the expected material arrived in the first place.
I wanted daily scenes and naming to follow ingest rules rather than somebody's memory. Once the material was on the working SSD, the same structure needed to carry through the rest of the day. A beautifully graded shot becomes a much less useful delivery if editorial cannot confidently identify it, or if an omitted camera magazine goes unnoticed because every file that did arrive copied correctly.
Sync and metadata still need a person looking at them
The next instruction is timecode sync, followed by visual and audio QC with headphones and a slip correction where needed. Then scene, shot, take, and timecode get checked against sound metadata and script notes. Circled takes need to survive that process. False takes need to be identified before they clutter the review material.
The revealing detail is the exception handling. My notes say to filter for missing grades and missing audio, then explain intentional exceptions in comments. A shot with no audio might be exactly what was intended. The same condition might also mean something was missed. Without the comment, the next person has to investigate both possibilities. A two-word explanation can prevent that ambiguity from travelling downstream.
Approval is a sequence, not a filename
For look approval, the order I wrote down was JPEGs first, notes from the cinematographer or director, then H.264 review movies, with another version if changes were needed. Only after the look was approved would the lab make the editorial work prints with that look baked in. This was the proposed order for that workflow, not a claim that every production should use the same deliverables.
A still lets us concentrate on the image. A movie also lets us assess it in motion and over a take. The important requirement is that the approval attaches to the version that actually goes forward. If a note changes the grade, the later exports have to come from that revised state. An approved JPEG sitting beside an older movie is an invitation to talk past each other.
The work print and the grade have different jobs
My handoff calls for editorial work prints, BLG files, LUT exports, and a lab report. FilmLight's BLG format can carry grading information into a compatible FilmLight workflow without making another rendered copy of the picture. The work print gives editorial a viewable image; the grade export preserves work that may need to continue. Those deliverables need to refer to the same approved look.
The final playback check matters because a completed render queue only tells part of the story. I want to know what was delivered, where it is, what version it represents, and what exceptions remain. That is the practical standard behind this workflow: somebody who wasn't in the room when we made the image should be able to pick up the material and understand how to use it.
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