FilmCraft

FilmCraft is a video editor for creators cutting existing footage into multi-track sequences with titles, captions, color grading and mixed audio.

A familiar timeline, with a new editing engine

FilmCraft is a standalone application from the ArtCraft team. Its workflow follows the Source monitor, Program monitor, media bins and timeline used by editors familiar with Premiere Pro. You select ranges from footage, place them on tracks, trim the edit, adjust picture and sound, and export a sequence. This makes it a footage-editing tool, rather than a service that generates a whole video from a text prompt.

The official product image shows a trailer timeline assembled from Night of the Living Dead, with separate video and audio tracks, a music bed, effect controls and a Program monitor. The developers supply that example; Seailife has not independently edited or exported the project.

From the first cut to the finishing pass

• Build the sequence: mark source In and Out points, then insert or overwrite clips onto targeted tracks. Nesting, snapping, linked selection and markers help organize the edit.
• Refine an edit point: ripple, roll, slip, slide, rate-stretch and razor tools cover different changes to timing. A Trim Monitor shows both sides of the cut, and dynamic trimming works during playback.
• Adjust the picture: exposure and white-balance controls, curves, color wheels, HSL secondary corrections, LUTs and scopes provide a grading workflow.
• Animate a clip: position, scale, rotation, opacity and effect parameters can use keyframes, including Bezier interpolation and editable value or velocity graphs.
• Mix sound: clip and track mixers, keyframed effects, sends and submixes sit alongside loudness and true-peak meters. The documented automation modes include Read, Latch, Touch and Write.
• Add words: graphic clips hold editable text and shapes, while caption tracks support importing and exporting SRT, WebVTT and SCC and burning captions into video.

The engine calculates edits with an integer timebase rather than approximate frame durations. The repository describes exact handling of common fractional frame rates, such as 23.976 and 29.97 drop-frame. It also documents atomic saves, rolling auto-save versions and a crash-recovery journal. These are developer-described mechanisms, not a guarantee that every project is immune to failure.

Moving a timeline is different from opening a Premiere project

FilmCraft cannot directly open Premiere's .prproj files. Its own project format is .fcproj. For moving work between editors, the repository documents interchange formats including Final Cut Pro 7 XML, FCPXML, OpenTimelineIO, EDL, AAF and OMF. Which format makes sense depends on whether you need a video sequence, nested clips, markers or an audio-post handoff.

Interchange support does not mean all application-specific effects, plug-ins and project settings will transfer unchanged. Test one short sequence and inspect the linked media, timing, transitions and sound before moving a larger edit. The current alpha has no VST3, Audio Units or OpenFX plug-in hosting.

Check the output path before the full edit

The documented export options include H.264 MP4 with AAC, ProRes 422 HQ in QuickTime, Motion JPEG, MXF, PNG sequences, animated GIF and WAV. Background render jobs expose progress and cancellation, and cached render previews are invalidated according to the parts of the sequence that change.

A format being readable does not establish that FilmCraft can also write it. The status section says H.265 delivery export requires a supported hardware encoder and AV1 export is not yet available. Camera RAW and some audio formats remain unsupported. A short export using your actual footage and required delivery settings is the useful first check.

An alpha with explicit professional-work gaps

The official repository separates feature breadth from readiness for real projects. FilmCraft remains alpha even though editing, grading, titles, audio and export are present. The team identifies large-footage performance, media compatibility and professional integration as areas still needing work.

• GPU support is not universal across the processing pipeline. The status notes that some grading, keying and export rendering still run on the CPU, so a supported GPU does not imply every operation is accelerated.
• Decoder checks against conformance streams are developer tests. Real camera and phone files are less tested, and Windows and Linux have received less testing than macOS.
• Some Windows graphics drivers can crash when an OpenGL backend is used. The repository documents Vulkan and DirectX 12 defaults and backend-specific troubleshooting.
• AI features are limited so far. Speech-to-text is optional and disabled by default; the product should not be confused with an automatic video-generation service.

Installation and repeatable edits

The official page offers the ArtCraft Launcher and standalone downloads. A WebAssembly build is also distributed for hosting the editor in a browser. The application is available under MIT or Apache-2.0 licensing, while bundled assets and branding retain their separate terms.

The interface, command-line tool, JSON control channel and MCP server share the same command engine. Scripts or agents can place clips, change parameters and render a sequence, which gives repeated edits an automation path. Review the exported video and audio before treating such a workflow as ready for delivery.