Create a fresh Premiere project.

Import your final sequence(s). Duplicate them and name the new sequences something like “_FORGRADE”. Now you have a copy of your original offline edits, plus new sequences which you’ll need to prep for grading.

CLEAN UP

Reduce down your tracks to only what’s necessary – ideally into one singular layer.

REMOVE:

• Audio layers – for playback in session, the audio from your offline reference will be used.

• Variable/ramped time remapping. These can be exported as 4444 and replaced in the timeline if necessary.

• Nested sequences need to be decomped or exported out as ProRes and reinserted back into the timeline. Multicam clips must be flattened.

• Fix all instances of the effect 'Scale to frame size'.

'Set to frame size' is fine as it changes the scale percentage of the clip but 'Scale' is a Premiere exclusive effect that won't carry over.

Please do not remove scaling information or reset the timeline to the source resolution of the rushes etc.

If you have extensive effects/time ramping/mixed frame rates/stills – it may be easier to grade via a flattened master rather than linking to the source media. Feel free to chat to me further to discuss if you think this is the case!

STEP 2: DELIVERY

UPLOAD OR TRANSFER TO A DRIVE THE FOLLOWING:

• A Quicktime reference of each offline edit (that has been watched and signed off). Make sure it includes all audio, intended time-ramping and misc effects. Please also bake in clip filenames and source timecodes if you can.
• An exported XML of each “_FORGRADE” sequence
• The new Premiere project.
• All original media
• Any look reference, camera information or LUTS used in previous edits