So you’ve made an amazing film in Flash and you want the world to see it so you export it to a Quicktime film or an AVI and plan to burn it to a DVD? But wait! When you try to import it to a Video Editor it can’t be seen by Premiere or Windows Movie Maker! Oh what to do?!?!?

We at Milowerx Media are here for you friend! Read on and we will solve all of your video woes!

(well some of them anyway…there seems to be a lot of woes associated with this and I have not found ANY other tutorials regarding this on the web. If you know of one let me know and I will link to it as well.)

Exporting:
When you try to export your amazing film as a .mov file or a .avi file (which Flash pointlessly does)
any video editor such as Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas will not see the file. You’ve got one day to finish your film in time for the Academy Awards submission deadline and now you can’t edit your film!

Not My Problem man:
This isn’t your problem you say? Well it will be, trust me, you just don’t know it yet. Nevertheless, let’s address your first problem then. Your problem is that when you export the file to a .mov file all of your animation stands still and will not move? Ahh, that too I can help you with my friend. read on for the solution to all your problems!

Fear not! There is a way! Actually there are two ways and neither of them are simple things to do ina few minutes.

Skip a Step:
Now if you were smart (unlike me the first time I attempted this) and did all of your animation with Graphic Clips then you are in the money honey, because that means that you can export your film beautifully and it will work wonders! You still will need to do Step SIX below because a video editor will not see your file yet.

Okay now down to Brass tacks and give you what you came for; answers and not just some smarmy attitude. Sorry but I just can’t help it!  I hate to be the one to tell you this but you can not use a Movie Clips in your films when you are exporting to a .mov OR a .avi file. At least not and have it be a finished film.

Don’t Kill the Messenger:

In order to do that you need to use Graphic Clips.
A good rule of thumb for making films in Flash that you will intend to export to DVD is this:

If you hit the Enter key it will play your film in real time. Whatever animation can NOT be seen directly in the Flash window (i.e. a Movie Clip which can’t be seen moving until you render) will NOT be seen by a .mov or and .avi file either.

Step ONE:
If you go into your library and sort by type you can shift select all of your movie clips and then right click on them. From there change the type to Graphic clip. Save your file as a new file so you don’t mess up your project.

Step TWO:
Now comes the tedious part.
Go to Windows>Movie Explorer inside Flash and it will bring up all elements in your film. The icons at the top let you tailor what will be seen and not be seen. If you click the button for only Movie Clips it will give you a list of all the movie clips in your scene.

Step THREE:
Select each one of your movie clips one at a time and go down the list and double-click on each Movie Clip. Flash will scroll to wherever that clip is located.

Step FOUR:
Now go back to your Timeline and right click on your Movie Clip and scroll down to Swap Symbol.
Flash should show you a list of all the Clips in your Library. It should also byv default select the clip you’re already trying to Swap. What you want to do is actually swap it for itself but now it will be a Graphic clip and not a Movie clip.

Step FIVE:
Now if you were to render your film out as a Quicktime Movie or an AVI it will work and you will be able to see everything moving as intended. But wait! As I said before you’re not done yet as there is one more step to video greatness.

What’s that you say? You can see your film as a Quicktime already? What could possibly be left? Well for one you’ll notice that Flash does not export the sound when it exports to a Quicktime film. Easy you say? Import to a video app and add the sound track in seperately?

Go on try it! I’ll wait…
Didn’t work did it?
Nope!
Aha! This brings us to the last step. The crucial step if you ask me. (and you did by coming to this tutorial) There are two ways to do this.

Step SIX:
The way around this is to export your file as a Flash 5 swf and then import it into Adobe After Effects. Import your swf to AE by going to File>Import and navigating to the swf you want to import.. Then create a new Composition by going to Composition>New Compostion. This should open a Timline Window for you. From there drag your swf on the time line and export as a QuickTime movie with Sorenson Compression. That should be it. Now your clip will work in any video editing program.

Note: Think of .avi and .mov files as frame by frame viewers which do not have the capacity to see inside a movie clip and play it’s animation. Quicktime can PLAY swf for sure but it sees them as just that; an swf and not as a native Quicktime file which is why you will be able to play your rendered file on the desktop but not in an editor that doesn’t support swf files.

Step SEVEN:
What’s that? You don’t HAVE After Effects? Can’t afford the high price? Well there is another way, but it takes longer and you will still need an app like Premiere. I have found that Vegas does not work for this and niether does Movie Maker. Your experiences may vary and if you know something I don’t feel free to share and I will add it to this tutorial.

Anyway, you once you’ve gotten your Movie Clip/Graphic Clip dilemma out of the way, you can instead export your film frame by frame as a sequence of jpegs if you like. Make sure they are the correct resolution and size for film which should be 72dpi and 640X480 or 720X540 if you are doing wide screen. This will take quite some time if you have a big film.

Step EIGHT:
Once you have exported the film open up Premiere and go to the Preferences for it under EDIT>Preferences and select General and Still Image. From there change the Default duration to 1 frame. I believe Premiere defautls it to one second which won’t work for you. Now, go to Flie>Import file and navigate to where Flash put all of your individual frame sof your film. Hit Control A (Command A on a Mac) and it will select all your frames in the folder. Hit OK and all your frames will be in your project. Do the same thing in your Project Bin windoiw and drag them to the Timeline. Now render out your film. Should work as well. Remeber this will ONLY work AFTER you’ve solved your Movie Clip/Graphic Clip dilemma. It is not a substitute for that problem.

Wheew! Well, that was lots of work for sure and believe me I have made this mistake myself which is why I am sharing it with you now. I also by no means know exactly how to do all this, I am merely sharing what I have learned. If you know something I don’t please feel free to share it with me aqnd I will be happy to post it here along with a credit to you as well.
I hope this helps!

Updates:
Read this post on my blog for some issues relating to exporting video from Flash and the pitfalls I have had with them.