Footage ©Kuhn Foundation, from the series Closer to Truth Cosmos. Consciousness. God.

I am always on the lookout for things that can make my life easier… sleep in a can, comfortable shoes, great software.

If you use Final Cut Pro and After Effects… do I have a find for you! I just finished a new book called Video Made on a Mac, and in the process of writing about Motion Graphics workflows, I’ve discovered an absolute gem, from a little place called Popcorn Island.

From Final Cut Pro to After Effects
Getting your footage from Final Cut Pro to After Effects is a very common workflow. In fact, so many people choose to work this way that there are several free and for sale workflow tools on the market. But I have a new favorite.

The script Final Cut 2 After Effects supports the following features:

• Cross Dissolve Transitions
• Basic Editing Translation
• Segmented Clips
• Basic Keyframes
• Time Remapping
• Nested Sequences
• Multiple Frame Rates and Aspect Ratios
• Audio Channels
• Name Length Error Checking
• Support for PAL25 and 60

Oh and in case you missed it… FREE

Here’s how the process works:

1. Download and install the After Effects scripts from here.
2. Launch After Effects and Final Cut Pro.
3. Open a Final Cut Pro project with media you want to exchange.
4. Select one sequence in the Browser.
5. Choose File > Export > XML. Choose XML Level 4.



6. Target a location and click OK.
7. Swith to After Effects and choose File > Scripts and select the newly loaded script (PI_FCP2AE.jsxbin).
8. Navigate to the XML file you created in step 5 and click Open. The footage and a new composition are created in After Effects.
9. Explore the composition and check the results.

Enjoy…

Also, be sure to check out the new book, Video Made on a Mac. More than 400 pages and 5.5 hours of video on Production and Postproduction Using Apple Final Cut Studio and Adobe Creative Suite.