From FCP to Premiere to ProTools to After Effects
The internet offered up a tasty little surprise recently when Adobe let loose up a point release update to CS4. the surprising bit was that this update wasn't the usual parcel of bug features but rather contained a set of surprising and exciting new-feature goodness particularly for Editors and Premiere Pro.
Related in many ways (unintentionally) to the themes of the previous post here on The Basin, the exciting parts of this release where the much improved project exchange mechanisms. Premiere now has its act together comprehensively with AAF on both Mac and Windows platforms. Whilst AAF has never really had the take up it deserved it certainly is a solid successor to the humble EDL as a way to move projects between applications. In just a simple test I conducted this evening I was able to move a sequence as an AAF project file from Avid, to Vegas, to Premiere and After Effects. Simple, clean, effective with the whole sequence remaining in tact. Premiere Pro CS3 had AAF but only on the Windows version. AAF is now solid and improved across both platforms with Premiere pro.
In theory the AAF structure was and is supposed to replace OMF, traditionally used to exchange multitrack audio layouts between NLEs and DAWs. In reality this never quite happened and OMF continued and remained the popular choice for getting from your editing timeline to a dedicated multitrack environment.
Premiere however was missing any OMF support and this had been a major stumbling block for Premieres acceptance into snobbish pro circles and workflows. Without OMF (and missing AAF as well on the Mac) Premiere lived in a bubble when it came to audio. certainly the audio tools of Premiere Pro are excellent; second only to Sonys Vegas when it comes to a combined NLE/DAW (certainly PPs audio tools are 1000 times more functional than the piss poor effort FCP continues to offer) But still, with no ability to get your audio into a ProTools session this proved a major stumbling block. But an obstacle no more as Premiere pro now has OMF export.
But its the last of the triumvirate of exchange options this update delivers that really is a bit of a head turner... Adobe Premiere Pro now has the ability to import and open Final Cut Pro projects....! Yep, that's right. A project cut in FCP can now be opened directly in Premiere Pro using FCPs XML format.
Having just done the test myself I can attest to it working perfectly. In fact I took a 5 minute project with 4 streams of video and 6 streams of audio from FCP, exported an XML project file, took my hard drive over from my Mac to my Windows based workstation and imported that FCP project into Premiere and it opened in seconds flawlessly.
Theres a number of reasons Im excited about this.... the first is that I love being a software slut and I love the creative flexibility in choosing not just the application that suits the job but even choosing individual features of different applications to get just the result I want. Similarly in my teaching of young filmmakers I put a great emphasis on workflow flexibility, of not being beholden to a particular brand but planning for flexibility to move projects around to get the best tool, best feature, for the jib at hand. With this we now open the door (one way at least) to being able to happily and seamlessly move a project at will. In fact between these three - AAF, OMF and FCP/XML I can now move a single project pretty much anywhere - XML from FCP to Premiere, AAF from Premiere to Vegas, OMF from Premiere to ProTools, AAF from Vegas to Avid, AAF from AVID to Premiere and so on and so on....
I may never want or need to do all that but I like that I can. I don't like software that tells me I cant.
The other reason im excited by this is that it opens up an unexpected but perfectly seamless path from FCP to After Effects. Cut and assemble in an off-line kind of way mindset in FCP, sexport an XML, import into Premiere Pro and create a Premiere pro Project file from that XML and then you have a Premiere project file that can be also opened perfectly in After Effects.
This is something that I think may get Digital Rebel pioneers like
Stu Maschwitz a little excited allowing a smoother journey from FCP to the After Effects as Online environment he has championed. This is of course assuming you own both FC Studio and Adobe Production Premium CS4. But Since the pricing on CS4 is so aggressive for the cost of After Effects and Photoshop you can just about buy the whole suite and this means that by proxy many otherwise devoted FCP editors find themselves with astray copy of Premiere lying around in defiance of their devotion..
The other attractor here is using Premiere for its real strengths which is as a finishing system. Debates can be waged endlessly over which NLE you like more and its invariably subjective. But in a straight up feature for feature smack down there is no contest; Premiere Pro has the significantly better feature set when it comes to being a Finishing System; let me count the ways - better colour correction tools, better titling engine, better sound editing tools, and better encoding and delivery options. Not to mention direct integration with After Effects, Encore, Flash and Photoshop. Once you get past the great timeline assembly features of FCP, where it can compete with any NLE, Final Cut starts to look rather thin and flimsy in the areas where Premiere excels. So with FCP/XML import in Premiere some editors may see Premiere as a finishing system for projects assembled in FCP.
Adobe may just be banking on this idea. I suspect their market research folks have found the biggest problem with Premiere is that editors, trapped in the insular padded cell of FCP/Avid head space, are simply to narrow minded, ignorant or arrogant to even try Premiere. This simple FCP project import feature may just be the ticket to entice them to try Premiere out. They may come at first just looking for a road to After Effects, Encore, Flash or better encoding options. Then they might stay a little longer in Premiere to do titling, audio edit and colour correction. Then, before you know it theyre saying to themselves, hell, why don't I just go from scratch in premiere.....
Any way you slice it; Apple opened the door for such inter application exchange by opting for the open standard XML framework. Adobe have now exploited that decision by Apple and it may just prove to be a chink in the FCP amour.
The question is however of course Why Adobe would release these features as a 4.1 update so soon after CS4 was released? Why werent the new features in CS4 from the start?
The answer is either
a) Because these new features just werent ready in time and the developers couldn't make the release date deadline.
or
b) Adobe deliberately left them out so they could get a second round of media attention just as the first wave was dying down a bit.
My bet is on the later....
Posted at 12:00AM Nov 21, 2008
by Mike Jones in video |
