Archive for Final Cut Pro

Moving toward reading FCP source timecode from imported Quicktimes in After Effects

May 9, 2006 at 8:59 am · Filed under Advanced, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Scripting

A recent thread on aenhancers discussed reading source timecode from Quicktimes imported from Final Cut Pro captures in After Effects. Seems like a perfectly reasonable request, there could be a bunch of situations where this information would be useful in an After Effects project. Problem is, it doesn’t seem really easy to grab that data. When you view the timecode track in the imported quicktime, the timecode is in reference to the source Quicktime not the source tape from the capture.

Correction

Mark Burton posted on the thread mentioned above that actually the timecode is written to the Quicktime. He offered a link to Sebsky Tools as an example of an app using that info. I simply misread the Quicktime player info. There is still useful info from Final Cut we can access and I think the ideas in this article are interesting so I’m leaving it up with this correction. Thanks Mark.

At least until Apple decides to put that information into the captured Quicktime We’ll need to find a workaround way to read FCP info and that’s what I’m going to cover in this post.

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MOVING BETWEEN FINAL CUT PRO AND AFTER EFFECTS: THE SCRIPTING OPTION

March 9, 2006 at 3:02 pm · Filed under After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Intermediate, Scripting

With the release of Automatic Duck as a free product there really isn’t a great reason to use this script except as an example of XML parsing and Comp creation from parsed properties. For general FCP to AE workflows I’d recommend downloading Automatic Duck Pro Import AE 5.0. Depending on what happens with FCPX I may write new tools for import from FCPX to AE.

Update 04.17.2007

I’ve posted a small application and tutorial at Final Cut Pro to After Effects Scripting without the hassle for those that find the scripting presented here a little daunting. The following article covers the steps and ideas encapsulated in the application if you’re more interested in the process for learning to script After Effects and Final Cut Pro yourself.

I work a lot in Final Cut Pro and After Effects. They are both really strong programs and more than once I’ve had reason to move projects, art, text, etc. between the two programs.

Until recently, the only option you had to do this kind of interchange was a product called Automatic Duck (which I highly recommend btw) and in previous versions you still had to use Avid’s interchange format and jump through a few hoops to move between the programs.

Now with Final Cut XML and more robust scripting available in After Effects you can finally flow between the two programs with relative ease. In this first installment, I’ll outline a simple workflow for getting clips in a FCP sequence into a AE project. In future posts I’ll go over text elements, filters, generator items etc., but all of these follow the same general development cycle and will just be elaborations on a theme.

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