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Looking for workflow suggestions
Hey everybody. I recently DP’d a short film that is going to be edited in Premiere CS 5.5 (on a Mac), but which I will be grading myself. I am a FCPX user and honestly don’t know how to grade in Adobe. Also, I want to stabilize some handheld footage and use the Finisher plug-in from CrumplePop, which is FCPX only. So, getting from Premiere to FCPX seems to be the challenge. I have a feeling that attempting to export the project from Premiere via XML and import to FCP is going to be a hassle and probably not work. Just a feeling; I could be wrong. My idea was to simply export the picture locked sequence as a ProRes file, bring it in to FCPX and cut each shot so as to have separate clips to work with. There are a lot of fast cuts, but the film is under five minutes, so it couldn’t be that bad, right? Has anyone used this method or have any suggestion for a better workflow?
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3 Replies
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I’m not sure FCP 7 will open a Premiere XML. If is does, then open in FCP 7 and use 7toX to get to FCP X. Another option would be to export an AAF from Premiere. Then use Automatic Duck to import into FCP 7. Then 7toX to get to FCP X.
Or use AE and stabilize and grade there. A far, far better tool than X for finishing. Or use DaVinci Resolve (free).
What is your source footage? If this is native DSLR footage (not converted), it won’t have TC and therefore might not translate correctly. If, OTOH, it’s RED, then the workflow gets more complex.
Why not edit in X if that’s where you want to end up and simply skip the whole translation issue?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Interesting. I’ll check into those conversion paths. To answer the questions though:
Re: Footage – Yes, it is native DSLR footage, so no timecode.
Re: Why not edit in X? In this case, the director, who also wrote the script, is also editing. It was a small project and we divied up duties before considering exact workflows. He is an Adobe user, but less experienced in grading than I am. I’m more of a shooter than an editor, but have spent a fair amount of time recently learning to grade my images in FCPX. So, learning a tool as comprehensive as AE to grade a five minute short with no budget isn’t going to be practical. DaVinci Resolve does look very exciting and would probably fit perfectly for future projects, but again, there will be a learning curve.
So while I will definitely check out 7toX and Automatic Duck, I’m wondering how these would compare to simply exporting the project in ProRes and grading in FCPX. Any downsides you could think of vs converting the project?
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[Jay Windland] “So while I will definitely check out 7toX and Automatic Duck, I’m wondering how these would compare to simply exporting the project in ProRes and grading in FCPX. Any downsides you could think of vs converting the project?”
Not really. Seems like the least problems would be to export a self-contained file and slice and grade it in FCP X.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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