Pro Editing @ Home

Interview - Wes Plate, President, Automatic Duck

by Kevin P McAuliffe

Unless you have been living under a rock, or are new to the editing game, you have heard about Automatic Duck, and their line of tools for After Effects and Final Cut Pro. I call them tools, not plug-ins, because that is that they are. They are tools to move your media back and forth between applications with speed and simplicity. I got the chance to talk to Wes Plate, President of Automatic Duck, and ask him about his company, and the newest addition to the Automatic Duck family, Pro Export 4 for Final Cut Pro.

PE@H: O.K., let's get this out of the way, since I'm always asked this by other editors. What is an Automatic Duck?

WP: Automatic Duck is a company that makes some pretty useful plug-ins for translating timeline info between the industries most important applications. "Automatic Duck" is actually the name of our company and not
the name of any of our products, our plug-ins have the much less interesting names of "Pro Import AE", "Pro Export FCP" and "Pro Import FCP".

The name itself doesn't mean anything. Back in early 2001 we were searching for a company name and were looking for something that was memorable and sounded cool but didn't didn't have any meaning. I found a drawing of a robotic duck in a fantastic book called "Connections" (the companion book to the incredible BBC documentary series) and it was the inspiration for the company name.

PE@H: Automatic Duck started out with Pro Import for After Effects. Can you give us a bit of history about PIAE

WP: In the second half of the 90s I was an Avid editor in the Seattle area and was fortunate to work with some very creative designers working in After Effects. I frequently collaborated with them, and also I frequently found
that I needed to send shots from my Avid into After Effects to create an effect or composite I just couldn't do in the Avid alone. The problem of quickly getting a complex sequence from Avid into AE was all too common for me, and I knew other editors around the world were increasingly in the same situation. This need led to the creation of our software company.

PE@H: One thing that I love about AD's plug-ins is that they seem advance by leaps and bounds from version to version. How much of user feedback is considered when coming up with upgrade ideas?

WP: We love getting feedback from our users and clearly their suggestions are a big part of guiding our efforts. Other feature improvements come from our own internal wishlist, sometimes things we have previously not been able to figure out or not had time to complete.

PE@H: Probably the biggest feature of AD's Pro Export 4 for FCP is the ability to convert your FCP footage to Avid's MXF file format. Did you get any feedback from Apple or Avid about this awesome feature? Can you tell us about how you can go the other way? (Avid to Final Cut Pro)?

WP: We haven't received much in the way of feedback from either company, but then again we haven't asked them "So what to you think?" In general we have a great relationship with both Apple and Avid, on my last trip to Boston I went out to Avid's Tewksbusy headquarters twice and I was also recently at Apple in Cupertino. We have a long history with both companies and enjoy working with them.

As to going "the other way" you can already import an Avid AAF file into Final Cut Pro using Pro Import FCP and use the Avid OMF or MXF media in FCP. Pro Import FCP has an option called "Use Existing Media" that tells the
plug-in to create QuickTime Reference Movies to the Avid media. These tiny files stand between FCP and the OMF or MXF media files and allow Final Cut to play back the Avid media.

PE@H: What has been the community's response to PE4 for FCP?

WP: We have heard some very positive comments to be sure. Anything that helps get process moving along faster and easier is definitely appreciated by our customers.

PE@H: You have also implemented a new licensing tool for all the AD plug-in's. Tell us a little about it, and why it's going to make our lives easier.

WP: We were looking for a way that users could better manage their licenses and perform common tasks more quickly and easily. The new server at http://my.automaticduck.com allows users to log in and see all of their serial numbers listed in one place and from there upgrade to a new version, redownload an installer, reset their serial number and more. Licensing and protecting against theft is still more complicated than it would be in a perfect world, but this new site has made things a lot easier to manage.

PE@H: You are the type of developer that likes to get out there to the user group meetings and talk to the users and show off your products. What is the most common thing you hear about your plug-ins from users?

WP: One thing I frequently hear at user groups is "Wow, I could have used that on a project I was doing last week!" We've been doing this for nine years now but educating users about our existence is still needed. Over time our name has become better known and now I can travel to a group and at least some people in the room know who I am, but there are still those who haven't yet seen the magic.

I also get a lot of "Love your stuff" kinds of comments and I love hearing it. We work really hard and it is always a boost to hear how much people appreciate what we do.

PE@H: Many people don't realize that you can not only export for Media Composer from PE4 for Final Cut Pro, but you can also export for Pro Tools and other DAW's. How is your export tool different from the OMF export from Final Cut Pro?

WP: The most obvious is that Pro Export FCP 4.0 exports AAF as well as OMF, but when using PEFCP4 you can export the media separately from the AAF or OMF file so you don't end up with one large file containing the edits AND the media (OMF has a file size limitation of 2GB). Also in an update coming soon you'll also be able to send your video to Pro Tools from Final Cut Pro so that the sound designer can play back your picture along with the sound.

PE@H: Why do you think that Final Cut Pro editors who work in mixed platform enviornments NEED PE4 for Final Cut Pro?

WP: Embedded in your question is the answer. If you're in a mixed environment you're inevitably going to need to get from Avid to FCP or FCP to Avid or FCP to After Effects or Avid to After Effects or FCP to Pro Tools or Pro
Tools to FCP or FCP to a Quantel finishing system... and that's where we come in.

I want to thank Wes for taking the time to talk to us about Automatic Duck, and their series of plug-ins. For more information on Automatic Duck, and their plug-ins, you can head over to www.automaticduck.com .