I have another update. I finally tested my theory out. I redid the film grain overlays, replaced the cleaner overlays with filthier ones, and changed them around to see if my luck would improve if I exported again. And to my sadness, it crashed again. So, for whatever reason, it looks like I may have to sacrifice the film grain if I want to get a good export.

I’ve been asking myself whether to try again with the color grading or not. Ideally, I don’t want to. I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to get this edit looking good. But at the same time, I’m not a fan of making it look soft and overly clean.

I’ve been entertaining a few ideas off the top of my head on what to do next. One is to throw in a film look LUT. This would compensate for the lack of grain, but I would have to go back and re-adjust the Resolve FX features all over again due to the change in contrast such a LUT would add. Another idea is to use the techniques I’ve learned from Jeff Bartsch’s book, Edit Better, but I think those techniques are designed for someone who is more of a professional colorist than I am. It would also require me to start the grade all over again too, since it doesn’t utilize Resolve’s FX features, which my current grade does. Third option? Same as option two, but with a LUT. Fourth option? Get over it, and stick with the grade as is, warts and all.

I guess there are a million possibilities for the color grading right now. I’d love to hear some more thoughts on this, as I’m not sure what to do next.