‘Rains Over Babel’ relies on timing, rhythm and structure to tell its story. Two editors and a colourist collaborated in DaVinci Resolve to finalise post in time for a Sundance premier.
Rains Over Babel is the debut feature film from Spanish Colombian writer/director Gala del Sol. The production recently premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in the NEXT category, which highlights innovative films with a bold message and style.
In the film, a city’s Grim Reaper, La Flaca, presides over Babel, an infamous bar that stands in for purgatory, where outsiders gather to gamble years of their lives with La Flaca, daring to outwit Death herself. Complex and feverish, the fantasy world and vibrant characters in Rains Over Babel were brought to the screen by Editors Gala del Sol herself and Hadley Hillel, working with Assistant Editors Jose Varón and Felipe Aguilar, and Colourist Elliott Powell.
Three Cities
Although separated in different cities – Hadley was in Los Angeles, Gala in Colombia and Elliott in New York – this team worked together in DaVinci Resolve Studio. “Hadley and I began by editing each scene separately in DaVinci Resolve Studio, starting with individual timelines for every scene. Later, we combined these into sequences to refine timing, rhythm and structure. We used speed ramps to fine tune the rhythm of certain cuts and enhance the energy in action sequences. Resolve’s stabilization tools were very helpful as we smoothed out some challenging shots,” Gala said.
“My favourite, and the most challenging sequence, was the climactic fight. It involved a montage of two fights happening in different times and locations, with the cuts matching movement. In DaVinci Resolve, we could experiment with rhythm and flow in until we achieved a coherent, kinetic montage. Outside of the Edit page, we used Fusion to key out green screens from the plates, work with titles and create the final animated sequence. The cut out animations for the credits were also done entirely within Resolve.”
According to Gala, the goal during grading was to create a futuristic punk aesthetic but with a tropical look. Elliott Powell, working on the DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, used a show LUT created by DP Sten Olsen as a starting point, and was able to introduce subtleties through colour density, texture, light grain, halation and glow.
Efficient Media Management
“The very first scene of the movie was one that developed the most during post,” Elliott said. “I cooled it down a fair bit to make the blue walls pop, and the scene’s wide shots, showcasing a range of different lamps and windows, really made the textural elements that I added shine.”
For efficiency, he also used DaVinci Resolve Studio’s ColorTrace tool quite often, to quickly copy grades from one timeline to another based on the source timecode of each clip.
“With Gala editing in Colombia while I was in New York, she used Resolve’s media management to get everything down to less than a terabyte using trimmed files, and then she sent me a hard drive and a DRT (DaVinci Resolve Timeline, .drt file), which eased the work of conforming. I reconformed from bins to the new trimmed clips, and then it was smooth sailing,” Elliott said.
When copying or transcoding media from a timeline, a .drt file is automatically generated in the same bin as the media files, linked to the created media. This timeline can then be imported into the same or a new Resolve project. “If there were some changes, she sent a new DRT and some more trimmed files, and I used the same process and then ColorTraced the colour from the old DRT to the new one,” said Elliott
Gala noted, “Given that Hadley and I were working long distance between Colombia and Los Angeles, while Elliott was in New York, being able to directly exchange DaVinci timelines saved us an incredible amount of time and ensured accuracy.
Simplifying the Workflow
“I love working with DaVinci because it simplifies the workflow between editing, grading and finalizing. In past projects, transferring between different software for colour grading has introduced challenges like dropped frames, misaligned shots or lost adjustments, including zooms, speed changes and stabilization. For Rains Over Babel, DaVinci Resolve avoided those issues entirely.”
Gala started using DaVinci Resolve in college, and I took a class taught by Tashi Trieu, a well known colourist whose work includes ‘Avatar,’ ‘Stranger Things,’ and ‘Star Trek’. “Although Elliott helped me with a lot of my class projects back then, I quickly fell in love with Resolve’s straightforward workflow and how everything I needed was integrated into one software,” she said.
“I have loved collaborating once again with my college friends, Hadley and Elliott, on this project. They’ve been integral to every short film I’ve worked on since those days, and it was incredible to have their talent, patience and sharp creative instincts by my side for my first feature. Their support made all the difference.” www.blackmagicdesign.com
