FM and Final Cut

[Kent Searight]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some tips or advice on integrating FM with Final Cut. What my client wants is the ability to create a shot log of video segments in FileMaker with as little manual entry as possible. A typical workflow would be:

00:00:00-00:01:30 Opening scene of sunrise

00:01:31-00:04:52 Interview with Dorothy

00:04:53- 00:5:15 Flashback to childhood

I would like to tie record creation in FM (each shot log) to triggering playback in Final Cut, i.e. a script would create a record, set the start time from Final Cut and run until user "stops", which sets stop time in the record. All this would leave to the logger is to make descriptive entries.

Any suggestions on how to go about this are greatly appreciated!

[comment]

I suppose an Appplescript run from FM could tell Final Cut to resume playback. I don't know if and how it could work in the opposite direction.

IIRC, FCP has a built-in logging module that does exactly this (you click 'Out" and a new clip is created, waiting to be renamed), and the log files can be exported. I beleive there are also 3rd-party apps that do logging. To recreate this inside Filemaker could be difficult, because you need to communicate with the deck.

[Kent Searight]

Hey Michael,

Thanks for the reply! One other possibility I'd wondered about was the ability to capture/record start and stop times directly from a QuickTime file playing in a container field. Can this be done?

[comment]

I don't know. Certainly not natively in Filemaker itself. Perhaps by a plugin, or Applescript again, but I doubt it.

[Kent Searight]

Thanks again for the reply. I'm going to keep researching.