Export a Paper Edit to Final Cut Pro and Avid

A paper edit only becomes useful once it lands in a real timeline. Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer each expect a specific file, built a specific way, or your selects show up as black gaps, wrong speed, or the wrong reel entirely. Here is what actually works for both, and why the two systems don't behave the same.

What Travels

What a selection needs to carry before it can export

A paper edit is just a list: in point, out point, source file, and order. For that list to become a real timeline, every selection needs three things attached to it: a frame-accurate timecode pulled from the source media, a stable reference to which file it came from, and the order the editor arranged it in. Miss any one of those and the import either fails outright or silently offsets by a frame or two, which is worse, because it looks right until someone checks it against the audio.

Final Cut Pro

Getting a paper edit into Final Cut Pro

ScriptCut exports the paper edit as XML (Final Cut Pro 7 XML), and Final Cut Pro imports it via File > Import > XML. Final Cut Pro's own modern interchange format is FCPXML, Apple's XML-based format, which ScriptCut does not export. The XML carries clip references, in/out points, and basic timeline structure, but it does not carry embedded media, so Final Cut needs to locate the original camera or audio files at the same relative paths, or you'll be relinking manually. The practical workflow: export the paper edit as XML from the pre-edit tool, keep the source media in the same folder structure it was in when you transcribed it, then import and let Final Cut auto-relink.

Avid Media Composer

Getting a paper edit into Avid Media Composer

Avid's own interchange formats are AAF and ALE, and each does a different job. AAF is the richest option: it carries the actual sequence structure, including multiple tracks and basic transitions, and imports as a real sequence in a bin via File > Import. ALE carries metadata only, no timeline at all, so it's for syncing logging notes to existing bins, not for building a cut. ScriptCut exports XML only, never AAF, FCPXML, ALE or OTIO, and Avid can import that XML to bring the paper edit in as a sequence. For layered selects, an Avid editor can then build out the track structure inside Avid.

AAF Vs EDL

Why AAF beats EDL for anything beyond a straight cut

The Advanced Authoring Format was published in 1998 by a consortium that included Microsoft, Avid, Digidesign, Pinnacle Systems, and Adobe, specifically to solve the interchange problem between production tools. That history matters here: AAF was built to carry structure, not just a list of timecodes, which is why it is the standard for handing a finished cut from an Avid edit to a sound mix. An EDL, by contrast, was designed for the single-track tape-to-tape era and starts breaking down the moment a sequence has more than one video track or an overlapping audio selection.

Format Choice

Picking the right export for the job

For a paper edit leaving a pre-edit tool, XML is the safest default. It works for Final Cut Pro, Avid, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, so one export covers every destination. FCPXML is Final Cut Pro's own format and AAF is Avid's own format; they matter when you are moving a finished cut between those systems, but ScriptCut does not export either.

Here is an XML handoff shown in practice, from an exported paper edit to a linked sequence inside Final Cut Pro:

Common Failures

Where these imports actually break

Frame rate mismatches are the top cause of an import that looks fine until the audio drifts, this happens when the source was logged at 29.97 but the timeline was built at 30. Relative file paths are the second: if the pre-edit tool references media at a path that no longer exists once files move to a new drive, XML, FCPXML and AAF imports alike will show offline media instead of failing loudly. The third is exporting before picture lock and re-exporting on top of manual trims the editor already made in the NLE, which silently discards that work.

Worked Example

A 12-person panel discussion cut two ways

A production company transcribes a 90-minute panel with five speakers, marks 22 minutes of usable selects across the transcript, and needs two versions: one cut in Avid for the broadcast client, one in Final Cut for the digital team. From the same set of selections, one XML export goes to both. The Avid editor imports it and gets a sequence with each speaker's selects already ordered on the timeline. The Final Cut editor imports the same file on the digital editor's machine, referencing the identical source files, and gets the same structure. Neither editor re-builds the selection by hand.

The Takeaway

Match the format to the system, not the other way around

XML is the format that gets a paper edit into both Final Cut Pro and Avid. FCPXML and AAF are each system's own format for later stages of the job. The format choice isn't a formality, it decides whether the receiving editor gets a real sequence to refine or a pile of offline clips to relink by hand.

Related reading: What Is an AAF File?, What Is a Paper Edit?, Premiere Pro Transcript Workflow, and What Is Offline Editing?

Sources

• Microsoft: Advanced Authoring Format specification release, 1998
• Advanced Authoring Format overview
• Avid: What is AAF format?
• Final Cut Pro user guide