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URGENT! Import/Export problems with FCP media to Motion
Hello, any help would be greatly…greatly appreciated. I am editing a music video in FCP 4.5 HD. I am laying out the edit there and doing all the color correcting in Motion 1.0.1.
I have my books in front of me and I am reading the additional pamphlet that came with it called, using postproduction apps together. But…I am having some major problems with the embeded option.
Here we go:I open up a file in FCP and set my in and out marker. I then move it to the timeline and place it where I want it to be. I then select the file *from the timeline* not in the browser for that option doesnt seem to work for me. I go to the file>export to motion project and then I make sure that launch motion and embed motion content are both checked. I save the file to my directory and then it opens it up in Motion.
Once I have it in Motion I can do color correcting and so on. Once I think I have it where I want it I select the image in Motion and then hit save. I then go back to FCP and 99% of the time the image has already been shifted to reflect what I did or it gives me the alert that I need to reconnect media. I do this and everything is fine.
Heres where the problem comes in: If I decide to do any further changes to my image I rarely notice it in FCP and sometimes it even reverts back to the origional file..untouched…even though it has the motion file extension on it in the timeline and there is a link in the browser.
After I make any additional changes I come back to FCP and then it give me the pop up of reconnecting the media so I say reconnect. It pops up as offline and then I hit enter and then it takes me to the directory that my .motn file is in, I select it and hit enter and then that is where it usually just reverts in the timeline back to the origional file/untouched/un color corrected. It is so frusterating.
I have tried everything. It seems so random that sometimes I feel like it might just be the program but it must be something that I am doing.
I guess my question is that if the embed option is selected when I switch over the file why is it doing this?
Also, is it expecting that I am only going to go over once and not continually work on my colors?
Can someone please help me with this question. Basically…Im on a timeline and I am desperate.
Thank you, Jeff.
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3 Replies
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The pro apps working together thing is quite confusing. Honestly, I’d avoid using so many links of refernces in the chain. You’ve got Final Cut referencing the media, Motion referencing that Final Cut project, and the same Final Cut project referencing the Motion project (which is of course referencing Final Cut). What you’re doing would allow you to make editing changes to things after it’s been processed by Motion, and while Apple’s documentation makes it sound like this should work, it’s really messy and appearantly isn’t very reliable. I would not use the embed option when exporting to Motion. Plus I would save the Motion project as it’s own entity, then import that Motion project into Final Cut and replace the clips in the sequence with it.
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Sean,
Hey man, thanks for the reply.
(I forgot to mention that I am running tiger on my G5 tower with motion 1.0.1 and that is where it doesn’t work…but on my G4 powerbook I am running 1.0 not the update…and on my powerbook it works if I continually update from one to the other…but that is why is bought my tower so I could finally get off of my laptop on big projects..AHHH.)
So, let me make sure that I have this right. Instead of selecting the embed option I should leave the origional file in the fcp timeline as sort of a marker. Then I go to Motion and work on the video file, tweak it to where I want it and then go to file>export and then save it as a quicktime movie and then from FCP I import that quicktime file with all the adjustments into the timeline and replace the untouched file?
Or…what do you think about possibly just opening the files that I know that I am going to be using in my project and before even going into FCP…open them up in Motion….color correct them…save them if they need to be updated and then when I feel that they are ready…export them to a quicktime file and then finally put them in them FCP and then in the timeline. Would that make sense?
Thanks again for the reply and the the help…I was so freakin’ frusterated lastnight…
Have a good day, Jeff.
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No, you don’t have to render new media out of Motion. Just do what you’ve been doing, but don’t check the “embed” option when doing “Export to Motion”. Then import the actual Motion project file (not rendered media) into Final Cut. It’ll act as a video clip. You’ll have to render it in Final Cut though.
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