Dérushage explained: logging, culling and organising footage in DaVinci Resolve
The French term for logging your footage. What it is, why it decides the edit, and a DaVinci Resolve workflow to do it fast without missing a usable shot.
By Hanna Eng·Video editor, Free Conservatory of French Cinema
Dérushage (footage logging) is the first step of editing: you watch your raw clips, the rushes, then select, label and organise the ones worth keeping before you build the edit. Done well, it turns a chaotic pile of footage into a fast, searchable set of usable shots.
Every edit starts with more footage than anyone can hold in their head. Before the storytelling begins, that raw material has to be tamed: watched, judged and organised so the good shots are findable in seconds. That work has a name in French editing rooms, dérushage, and how well it is done quietly decides how fast and how good the edit will be.
Dérushage at a glance: four steps
| Step | What you do |
|---|---|
| 1. Import and name | One project, a clear naming convention, folders by shoot day, camera or scene. |
| 2. Watch and decide | One pass per clip: keep, maybe or reject. No fine trimming yet. |
| 3. Mark the selects | In and Out points, saved as subclips or flagged moments. |
| 4. Sort and tag | Bins by scene, colour by status, keywords and metadata so every shot is searchable. |
What is dérushage?
Dérushage is a French editing term with no single English word. The closest equivalents are logging and culling footage. A rush, or rushes, is your raw, unedited footage straight from the camera and recorder. Dérushage is the process of watching that material and selecting, naming and organising the parts worth keeping.
It is always the first real step of post-production, before you cut a single sequence. Skip it and you edit by scrubbing through hours of clips. Do it well and every usable shot is one search away.
Why dérushage decides your edit
You can only cut what you can find. A documentary or a brand film can generate ten to fifty times more footage than the final runtime, and none of it is labelled. Without a logging pass, that footage is a wall you climb every time you need a shot.
Good dérushage front-loads the thinking: you decide what is a keeper, what is a maybe and what is unusable once, while the material is fresh, instead of re-deciding it on every pass. The edit then moves at the speed of your story, not the speed of your scrubbing.
Dérushage vs editing: two different jobs
Dérushage is selection and organisation. Editing is assembly and storytelling. They use the same software but answer different questions: dérushage asks what do I have and is it usable, editing asks what goes where and why.
Keeping them separate is what makes both fast. Trying to build the edit while you are still discovering the footage is a common reason a first cut drags on far longer than it should.
A methodical dérushage workflow, step by step
Import and name first. Bring everything into one project and give clips, bins and the project a clear, consistent naming convention before you watch anything. Folders by shoot day, camera or scene save hours later.
Watch once, decide as you go. Play each clip at a comfortable speed and judge it on the first pass: keep, maybe or reject. Resist the urge to perfect-trim now, you only need to know the clip exists and roughly where the good part is.
Mark the selects. Set In and Out points on the parts you will likely use and save them as subclips, or flag the moments. This is where rough scrubbing becomes a short, searchable list of usable pieces.
Sort and tag. Group selects into bins by scene or theme, colour-code by status, and add keywords or metadata such as speaker, location and topic so you can pull every relevant clip in one click later.
How to dérush in DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve gives you everything dérushage needs in the Media Pool and on the Cut page. Build a bin for each scene or shoot day, then use Flags and clip Colours for a fast keep, maybe, reject system you can read at a glance.
Add Keywords and Metadata as you watch, then let Smart Bins collect clips automatically by those rules, so a bin like interview, speaker A, usable fills itself without you moving a file. Save your In and Out selections as Subclips, and if you are handed a flattened video that already contains hard cuts, the Media Pool's Scene Cut Detection can split it back into its individual shots.
The table below maps each tool to what it does.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Bins (Media Pool) | Folders that group clips by scene, shoot day, camera or topic. |
| Smart Bins | Auto-collect clips by metadata rules such as keyword, flag or date, without moving the files. |
| Flags | One-click visual markers to tag your selects and recurring themes. |
| Clip colours | Colour-code clips by status: keep, maybe, reject, or by category. |
| Keywords | Searchable tags that feed Smart Bins and fast filtering. |
| Subclips | In and Out selections saved as their own short clip. |
| Metadata | Scene, shot, take, notes and timecode for search and later conform. |
| Scene Cut Detection | Splits an already-edited or flattened video back into its individual shots by detecting the existing hard cuts (not for raw continuous takes). |
Blackmagic Design, DaVinci Resolve training
How to dérush faster without missing anything
Speed in dérushage comes from a system, not from watching less. Commit to a single decision pass: the first time you see a clip is when you flag it, so you never watch the same footage twice.
Use a fixed colour and flag code, for example green for keep and yellow for maybe, and learn the In and Out keyboard shortcuts so tagging never breaks your viewing rhythm. Leave precise trimming for the edit, dérushage only needs to find and label the good parts.
Spotting audio problems during dérushage
Because the same person here handles picture and sound, dérushage is also where audio problems get caught early. As you log, flag clips with background noise, clipping, wind or uneven levels.
Catching those at the logging stage means the dialogue clean-up in iZotope RX and the final mix are planned, not discovered at the last minute. It also tells you which takes are unusable for sound even if the picture is perfect, before you build a scene around them.
Common dérushage mistakes
The expensive mistakes are organisational, not technical: no naming convention, so nothing is searchable; re-watching the same rushes on every pass instead of deciding once; never rejecting anything, so the maybe pile is as big as the footage; and skipping metadata, which kills Smart Bins and any later conform.
Each one quietly adds hours to the edit. A consistent system fixed at the start of dérushage is the cheapest time you will ever buy on a project.
Frequently asked questions
What does dérushage mean?
Dérushage is the French editing term for logging footage: watching your raw clips, the rushes, and selecting, labelling and organising the usable parts before editing. The closest English words are logging and culling.
How do you dérush footage?
Import and name everything, watch each clip once and decide keep, maybe or reject, mark your selects with In and Out points or flags, then sort them into bins with colours, keywords and metadata so every shot is searchable.
What is the purpose of dérushage?
It turns hours of unlabelled footage into a fast, searchable set of selects, so the edit moves at the speed of the story rather than the speed of scrubbing. It also front-loads the keep or reject decisions while the material is fresh.
What is the difference between dérushage and editing?
Dérushage is selecting and organising footage. Editing is assembling and shaping the story. Doing the selection first is what keeps the edit fast.
How do you dérush quickly in DaVinci Resolve?
Build a bin per scene, use a fixed Flag and clip Colour code for keep, maybe and reject, add Keywords so Smart Bins fill automatically, save selects as Subclips, and use the Media Pool's Scene Cut Detection on any flattened video to split it back into its existing shots. Learn the In and Out shortcuts so tagging never interrupts viewing.
How much footage should you keep when dérushing?
Keep only what serves the story: clear selects plus a small maybe pile for safety. If the maybe pile is as large as the footage, the decisions have not been made yet.
What is dérushage in English?
There is no exact translation. Editors usually call it logging or culling footage, sometimes organising rushes or media management.