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An edit cut somewhere else (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut 7, or seriesmith’s own Premiere / Resolve XML export) comes into seriesmith as a new show and episode, or as the next episode of a show you have: a shot per clip, its footage the shot’s take, the cut’s trims, dissolves and fades kept, and the rest of the sound in the episode’s mix. From there it is an episode like any other: write what happens in a shot and render it again on a model, add music cues, effects and ambience, re-cut it, master it.

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Exporting the XML

The format is FCP7 XML (a .xml file). Final Cut Pro X’s .fcpxml is a different format and isn’t read yet: export the FCP7 kind.
  • Premiere Pro: select the sequence, File › Export › Final Cut Pro XML…
  • DaVinci Resolve: File › Export › Timeline…, format FCP 7 XML V5 Files
  • Final Cut Pro 7: File › Export › XML… (version 4 or 5)
  • seriesmith: Export › Premiere / Resolve XML (or seriesmith assemble <episode> --xml)
The XML names its media where it was when you exported it. Import it on the machine that holds that media; a file that moved is looked for beside the XML too.

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Importing it

In the editor, Project folders (the episode browser):
  • A new show: go to the folder your shows live in, then Import… › An edit (FCP7 XML)… (or New series/project… › From an edit (FCP7 XML)… at the top of the wizard).
  • The next episode of a show: go into the show’s folder, then New episode… › From an edit (FCP7 XML)…. It is the show’s next episode (ep03 after ep02), its series config the newest episode’s, so the cast, look and voices carry over; the episode itself is at the edit’s frame rate and size, on hold, with the footage location added (the summary says so when the show’s rate or size differs).
Pick the .xml (or give its path on the machine seriesmith runs on: the media is then looked for beside it too), choose how its footage comes in (below), and name the show (or title the episode; the sequence’s name by default). The wizard reads the edit as you change these and says what it will make: the shots, the takes, the sounds, and anything that doesn’t come through. Import makes the show, builds it and opens it; the footage is made on the queue (Jobs: a job per source file), each shot’s take appearing as it’s done. From a terminal:

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How the footage comes in

Every way, the cut’s trims make it play exactly the XML’s in to out, and the frames around that are there to trim back into. Proxies: the take the editor plays is the proxy; the original stays where it is and is recorded as the take’s master. Export, Master and the XML export cut from the original (re-encoded at master quality), so nothing is lost to the proxy. If the original moves or changes, they say so and cut from the proxy. A source is proxied once, however many clips use it, and running its job again (Retry in Jobs) keeps the proxy while the source is unchanged. An upscale of a proxied take works from the proxy.

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What becomes what

  • The sequence: its frame rate (23.976 for 24 NTSC) and size are the series’; its name is the show’s (the folder is made from it) unless you name one. The episode is ep01.
  • Clips on V1 are the shots, sh010, sh020, … (when every clip is named after a shot id, as seriesmith’s own export names them, those ids). Each shot’s length (dur:) is its length on the timeline; its action line is the clip’s name, a placeholder until you say what happens in it, with the source file and its in and out in a comment under it.
  • Clips on V2 and above aren’t imported (the picture is V1’s); each is listed.
  • A gap on V1, a generator there (black video, a title, a colour matte) or a disabled clip becomes a shot of black of that length, so everything after it stays in place.
  • Transitions: a dissolve between two clips is the second clip’s dissolve, its overlap taken from the clips’ own frames; a Dip to Black a fade out and a fade in; one at a clip’s head or tail with nothing beside it (or a fade from or to black) a fade in or out.
  • A clip’s own sound (an audio clip linked to it, of the same file) is the take’s sound; a level on it is the clip’s gain, a disabled one plays silent. An audio clip of another file starting where the clip does on A1 or A2 (a voice stem, synced sound) is the shot’s sound from that file. A clip with no sound in the XML plays silent.
  • Every other audio clip is an item in the episode’s mix, its file copied into audio\: anchored to the shot playing where it starts and ends, its offset into the file, its level (Audio Levels, the keyframes as points), its fades, muted when disabled. Its track is chosen by what its track, file and folder are called: sfx, fx, foley effects; amb, room, bed, atmos ambience; dialogue, dx, vo, adr dialogue; anything else music. A second track of a kind becomes a track of its own (Music 2). The XML’s levels are the mix as it was made, so the imported tracks’ faders sit at 0 dB and they don’t duck under the dialogue (turn that back on in the mixer).
  • Markers: one whose comment is hit (as seriesmith exports its hits) is a hit of the mix; every other marker starts a sequence at the shot playing there.
  • The model: the series renders on Hold (seriesmith’s own: no model, any size and length), so its shots build whatever their size and length, and each shot’s first keyframe is its first frame as the cut plays it (refs\shots\<shot>\first.png). To make a shot again, say what happens in it and pick its model (the shot form, or the series’ model in Series settings); a model that starts from a picture starts from that frame.

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What doesn’t come through

Effects on clips (colour, scale and position, speed changes, keyed titles), nested sequences (a clip that is a sequence has no take), clips above V1, audio pan, and a slipped sync between a clip’s picture and its own sound. The import’s notes list each one it met. From seriesmith’s own export, the ambience beds and a shot’s effects come back as plain items on their tracks, voices-only as each shot’s voice stem as its sound, and the ducking is off.

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Where it lands