# Exporting to your editor

StoryCut gets you to a rough cut, then hands it to the editor you finish in: Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Premiere or Avid Media Composer. An export is a small file that describes your edit and points at your footage. Your footage never leaves your computer: StoryCut doesn't upload it, and the export only names where each file is.

## What you can export

- **A recording.** Its clips, by rating, with every camera angle on its own track and in sync. Use it when you filmed one session and want your best takes in your editor.
- **A timeline.** The rough cut: every take in its slot, on its tracks, in story beat order, as it plays in Edit's preview. A timeline also gives you [captions](/docs/captions) and [YouTube chapters](/docs/youtube-chapters).

## Before you export

Every media file needs to be in place before its export:

1. **Add your footage.** On the recording's page, select the media files from your computer, one for each camera. Do this on the computer that has your footage: on a phone, StoryCut offers a link to open on your computer instead.
2. **Align each camera angle** to the sync clap: find the moment you clapped and confirm it. That's how StoryCut lines up every angle on the recording's clock.

A recording's **Export** button turns on once every media file is aligned. A timeline exports from **Export** in Edit, using the media files of the takes that play.

## The export form

### Editor

Choose the editor you'll open the export in. Each has a page on importing it:

| Editor              | File                                                                 | Page                                     |
| ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| Final Cut Pro       | FCPXML (`.fcpxml`)                                                   | [Final Cut Pro](/docs/final-cut-pro)     |
| DaVinci Resolve     | FCPXML (`.fcpxml`), or OpenTimelineIO (`.otio`), which keeps markers | [DaVinci Resolve](/docs/davinci-resolve) |
| Premiere            | FCP7 XML (`.xml`)                                                    | [Premiere](/docs/premiere)               |
| Avid Media Composer | OpenTimelineIO (`.otio`)                                             | [Avid Media Composer](/docs/avid)        |

### Clips to export

A recording exports the clips with the ratings you tick: **Save**, **Hero**, **Blooper** and **Trash**. Hero, Save and Blooper are ticked to begin with. A timeline exports the takes in its slots, so it has no ratings to choose.

### File path on your computer

Your editor finds each media file by its full path, so give each one, like `/Users/you/Videos/Interview A-cam.mov`. StoryCut remembers it on this device for the next export.

- **Mac:** in Finder, select the file, hold Option and choose **Copy as Pathname** from the right-click menu.
- **Windows:** in File Explorer, select the file and choose **Copy as path** from the right-click menu (or hold Shift and right-click), then remove the quotes.

A wrong path still imports: your editor shows the clip as offline, and you relink it there.

### Frame rate

StoryCut reads each media file's frame rate where it can, marked _auto-detected_. Otherwise it assumes 29.97 fps, marked _default_. If your camera filmed at another rate, choose it: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 or 60 fps. A wrong rate makes clips drift out of sync in your editor.

### Timecode start

The timecode of the media file's first frame, in milliseconds. StoryCut reads it from the file where it can. Leave it at 0 unless your camera writes timecode and you want your editor's timecode to match it.

### Download

**Download** saves the file once every media file has a path. Open it in your editor as its page describes.

## Multicam

A recording filmed with several cameras keeps every camera angle in sync:

- **Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve (FCPXML)** get a real multicam clip.
- **Premiere and Avid, and Resolve's OpenTimelineIO,** get the angles stacked on their own tracks, in sync, since those formats have no multicam. Make a multicam from them in your editor.

A timeline plays the camera angle each take uses, so its export has the angle already chosen.

## When something's wrong

- **Clips are offline or red.** The file path didn't match where the file is. Relink in your editor, or export again with the right path.
- **Clips drift out of sync.** Check each media file's frame rate in the form, then check that each camera angle is aligned to the sync clap.
- **Markers are missing in Resolve.** Export OpenTimelineIO instead of FCPXML (see [DaVinci Resolve](/docs/davinci-resolve)).

Still stuck? Ask in StoryCut's Discord, linked from [the community page](/community).