Premiere Pro to FilmCraft: what converts and what doesn't
A Premiere Pro project can't be opened by FilmCraft directly, but most of an edit can be rebuilt. This article explains how the conversion works, what comes across, what is left behind, and what to do once the .fcproj is on your computer.
How the conversion works
A .prproj file is gzip-compressed XML. Inside is a flat list of objects (clips, tracks, media, sequences) that point at each other by ID. The converter unzips it, follows those references and builds a neutral description of each sequence: its tracks, clips, transitions, markers, captions and the bin tree. Times are kept in Premiere's own ticks (254,016,000,000 per second) until the last moment, so no precision is lost to early rounding.
It then writes that description as Final Cut Pro 7 XML (the "xmeml" format) and hands it to FilmCraft's own importer. A few things the XML can't express (adjustment layers, non-uniform scale, blend modes, channel volume, caption tracks and titles) are applied afterwards as ordinary FilmCraft edits, and the project is saved by FilmCraft's own writer. The .fcproj you download is therefore the file FilmCraft itself would have saved.
Why FCP7 XML is a sensible exchange format
FCP7 XML is old, but it is documented, widely implemented and describes an edit in the terms editors use: sequences, tracks, clip items with in and out points, transitions, filters with parameters, keyframes, markers, nested sequences. Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut and others read or write it, and FilmCraft already imports it. Going through it means FilmCraft decides how a clip or keyframe is stored, and it reports what it cannot take, instead of a third-party tool guessing at FilmCraft's internal format. The trade-off is that anything XML can't say needs a separate patch, which is why a few features are handled in that second step.
What carries over
| Area | What you get |
|---|---|
| Bins and sequences | Bin names and contents; sequences with their frame size, frame rate (including odd ones such as 29.845 fps) and track layout. |
| Clips | Position, source in and out points to the tick, constant speed and reverse, disabled clips, muted and locked tracks, linked video and audio. |
| Nested sequences | Kept as nested sequences, pointing at the sequence inside. Nesting beyond a certain depth is skipped and reported. |
| Motion and Opacity | Position, scale (also non-uniform), rotation, anchor point, opacity, with keyframes; linear, hold and Bezier interpolation. |
| Blend modes | All 26 Premiere blend modes. |
| Audio | Clip and channel levels in decibels, with keyframes; track faders. |
| Transitions | Cross Dissolve and other transitions FilmCraft has under the same name, with length and position. Audio: Constant Power, Constant Gain, Exponential Fade. |
| Markers and captions | Sequence and clip markers with name, comment and duration; caption text and timing, one FilmCraft caption track per Premiere one. |
| Generators | Color Matte, Black Video, Transparent Video, Bars and Tone, Counting Leader, and adjustment layers with their effects and length. |
Effects
Premiere's effects are paired with FilmCraft's by match name. The ones FilmCraft has include Gaussian Blur, Brightness and Contrast, Tint, Invert, Sharpen, Levels, Crop, Directional Blur, Transform, Corner Pin, Color Key, Noise, Wave Warp, Linear Wipe and Timecode, with their keyframes; the full list is on the supported features page. Lumetri Color converts for its basic controls (temperature, tint, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, saturation, vibrance, vignette and a few more), but curves, colour wheels, HSL secondary, LUTs and looks are only reported.
Image sequences
Numbered stills that Premiere treats as one clip can open in FilmCraft as an image sequence, but only if you tell the converter where your media folder is before converting. Without it, relinking in FilmCraft 0.8 turns a sequence into a single still. The report names each sequence so you know which ones to check.
What does not carry over
- Variable speed. Time Remapping keyframes are not converted; the clip plays at one constant speed and the report says so.
- Effects FilmCraft doesn't have, including third-party plug-ins. Each is listed by name, clip by clip. The clip itself still arrives with its timing and other properties.
- Shapes, masks and animated text in graphics. The clip keeps its place on the timeline as an empty clip.
- Titles keep text, position, size, alignment, font name and plain colours, outline and shadow, but not styled runs or animation, and the look can differ.
- Details: Bezier handles become FilmCraft's standard ones; keyframe times are rounded to the sequence's frames; marker colours become the default; track names are not carried; the per-clip Scale to Frame Size option is reported rather than applied.
- Not read at all: multi-camera editing state, Dynamic Link comps and proxies.
A transition FilmCraft lacks becomes a Cross Dissolve and is reported; a Custom Fade becomes Constant Power.
How well does it work?
The converter was tested on 117 Premiere projects: 116 test projects (mostly small, single-feature ones saved by Premiere Pro 2026, plus a few real-world projects) and one from an older release. Each was converted, saved by FilmCraft's writer, then read back and compared with the original XML, covering tracks, clips, in and out points, speed, transitions, markers, captions, audio levels, Motion and Opacity values and keyframes, and the effect values listed above. In our tests 87 match on everything compared; the other 30 lose something their report names, and none differs in a way the report doesn't mention. That is a small corpus, not a guarantee: a large production project with unusual plug-ins will probably have more to report.
Opening the project in FilmCraft
- Download the
.fcproj. - Open it from inside FilmCraft with File, Open Project (Cmd+O), or drag it onto the window. Double-clicking it in Finder does not open it in FilmCraft 0.8.
- Media still at the path it had when the .prproj was saved reconnects by itself.
- Install the fonts your titles use; a missing font is drawn with a fallback.
Relinking media
Your media files are never uploaded, so FilmCraft shows them as offline until it finds them. If you pasted your media folder into the converter, the project already points there. Otherwise, right-click the offline item in the Project panel, choose Link Media and pick the folder that holds the files. FilmCraft searches by file name, and stills, video and audio match with the default settings. Projects over about 250 MB of unpacked project data are refused.
What to check by eye
Play through the sequence once. Look at titles, since their appearance can differ; at effects, which FilmCraft draws with its own engine, close to Premiere's but not identical to the pixel; and at any keyframed motion that used custom Bezier curves. Then read the "Didn't carry over exactly" list in the report before you trust a conform.
If you want to try it on a project, the Premiere Pro to FilmCraft converter takes a .prproj and returns the .fcproj with a clip-by-clip report; the guide and FAQ cover the rest.