Back in the days of Final Cut Studio 3 and it’s previous incarnactions, the Automatic Duck plugins often proved an invaluable way to export multiple clips to apps such as Nuke and After Effects for further post production.
When Final Cut Pro X was released, it changed all that, the very first release of Final Cut Pro didn’t have the ability of exporting XML and when the update came out that added XML it was in a newer format which meant all the old apps that used to be able to use the XML to move things into other apps no longer worked.
A few months later after all of this, meet ClipExporter for Final Cut Pro X.
What is ClipExporter for Final Cut Pro X?
ClipExporter for Final Cut Pro X has been developed by Mindtransplant and essentially takes a Final Cut Pro X XML file and provides an easy way to get your clips out of FCPX and into your favourite apps like Nuke, Syntheyes, After Effects or just plain Quicktime references movies for any other app.
The great thing about the way it does it too, is the firstly it’s super simple to do, all you have to do i export a XML file from Final Cut Pro, then when you open ClipExporter it asks you to load in the XML file, and then you can configure your options before export and secondly it has some great feature in dealing with the exported clips such as:
- Supports roles for selective export of a single clip or a group of clips.
- Adds handle frames (optionally). Extends each clip length by a given number of frames.
- Creates shot based folders with naming conventions.
- Creates subfolders (optionally).
- Saves disc space by refering to the original source media. No files are copied.
- Export for After Effects. Translates the complete project to a composition.
- Exports Quicktime reference movies. These files can be opened in other applications like Mocha, Motion, PFTrack etc.
- Exports Nuke files. All in-/out-frames and timeline positions match your exported Final Cut Pro X project.
- Export for Syntheyes. A custom (.synInfo) file format is created for import in Syntheyes. Therefore an importer sizzle-script is required, which can be downloaded here
The great thing about the app supporting roles is that now roles can become pretty useful in Final Cut Pro X, you can give your clips in FCPX roles such as After Effects, Nuke, Colour Grading, Roto etc… then use ClipExporter for Final Cut Pro X to send them to the right apps.
Another great things thing the app does is that when it create the reference movies it will allow to add handles to each side of the clips, this are invaluable when your clip is part of a transition with another clip.
You can also create shot based folder with naming conventions and sub folders, invaluable in keeping your projects highly organised.
There are a few known issues with the app currently, for example -
- Retimed clips are not supported. Please “unretime” all clips before export. ClipExporter warns you, if retimed clips were found in your project.
- Multicam clips are not supported. Please “flatten” Multicam clips before export.
- Effects, translations, animations and every other Final Cut Pro X related modification on a clip will be discarded (Nuke & Quicktime only).
- Video-clips with unsupported or odd fps (frames per second) values could cause inaccurate timming results.
- Event-XMLs are not supported.
As long as you take these into account then this app is great and is definitely a must for anyone using FCPX and a post production workflow. I’ve spoke to Thomas the developer of the app to and he assures me that some of the known issues are being worked on, Multicam for example should make it’s way into an update to ClipExporter and is something he is working on currently.
If you want to find out more about ClipExporter then check out the videos below.
ClipExporter for Final Cut Pro X from Mindtransplant on Vimeo.
ClipExporter v1.1 Exports FCP X Projects to After Effects from Mindtransplant on Vimeo.
I would definitely reccommend this app and urge everyone to download it from the app store, it won’t break the bank and is perfect in a post production set up.
Visit the website or download it from the App Store now.
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