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Final Cut / Motion roundtripping
< repost from FCP forum - had meant to put it here >
Ok… I’ve been using FCP on and off for about a year, and although I have mostly avoided the situation, I’m getting to the point here where I KNOW there should be some “good” (familiar, convenient) way to use Final Cut and Motion. This is a really basic workflow issue that I haven’t come up with a solution for.
I’ve been on an Avid using the Boris RED plugin for about 9 years now and I’m pretty happy with the workflow. Stack up tracks in the Avid timeline, apply Boris on or above the top track. Launch Boris and everthing’s there… composite and effect my heart out, exit back to Avid to render. The effect is still on the top track all the source clips are still there below, and replacing or adjusting something is as easy as making the change and re-rendering.
Seems like Motion should work similarly, but Send To Motion returns me to a timeline where all my source tracks are gone – the motion project has replaced that chunk of my sequence. What gives??
Am I supposed to make duplicate timelines every time I wish to use Motion? What if I want to replace a source clip or re-time something? This seems crazy convenient the first time around, but revisions are a nightmare.
Thanks for any hints,
-Adam
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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor -
2 Replies
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Here is what I do:
-Make the graphics animation in Motion.
-Save the Motion project. No need to export a .mov out of Motion.
-Import the Motion project into your FCP project file.
-Drop your Motion project into your timeline just like you would with any other clip. It may need to render to play back.
-If you want to edit the file in Motion again, simple right-click the file in your timeline and then go to “Open in Editor.”
-Make the changes and hit “Save”
-FCP should automatically update.It’s very simple. There should be no need to duplicate timelines or do anything that seems to be more inconvenient than helpful.
Make sense?
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com -
Hey Robert, thanks for the input, and yeah that workflow is great when I can create something stand-alone and drop it in. I love being able to save a Motion project and then just drop it into FCP and go.
Problem is, I’m more accustomed to editing along, getting pacing and shots down, selecting source material, and then working on compositing or graphics once I have a good idea of what’s going on around it.
I’d really rather not have to export all the tracks that will be referenced and rebuild that section of my sequence in Motion before I can get down to the fun stuff. And if I decide to change a source clip or timing of the utilized clips, it starts to get ugly.
I was hoping there’s something I’ve missed when using ‘Send To Motion’ that would allow me to keep my sequence intact.
Thanks!
-Adam
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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor
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