Start a project
The quickest way in is to open the footage itself. Frame Job builds a project around the file, at its size and frame rate, with the file already on the timeline. If you’d rather start empty, New Project gives you a blank one. To open a project you’ve already saved, see Open a project.
- Menu
- File ▸ Open…File ▸ New Project
- Keys
- ⌘O⌘N
- Where
- Welcome window ▸ Open Video…Welcome window ▸ New ProjectFinder ▸ Open With ▸ Frame Job
- Agent tools
open_projectnew_projectimport_mediasave_project
Open a movie
Section titled “Open a movie”Any of these does the same thing:
- Choose File ▸ Open… (⌘O), or Open Video… on the Welcome window, and pick the file.
- In the Finder, choose Open With ▸ Frame Job.
- Double-click the file, once you’ve made Frame Job the default app for that file type.
- Drop the file on the Dock icon or on a Frame Job window.
Frame Job appears under Open With for movies and for M4A, MP3, WAV, AIFF, PNG, JPEG and HEIC files, but it doesn’t take over their double-click unless you make it the default.
You get an untitled project with the movie as its first media file and its first clip, at the very start of Track 1. The window is named after the file, so Interview.mov opens as “Interview”.
A WebM or MKV file is copied into a movie first. A file macOS can’t open may still come in through ffmpeg, if you have it installed.
Open a sound file
Section titled “Open a sound file”Open a sound file the same way. A sound file has no picture to take a size from, so its project is 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps, with the sound as the first clip on Track 1. A movie file that holds only sound gets the same project.
Open a picture
Section titled “Open a picture”Open a PNG, JPEG or HEIC the same way. The project takes the picture’s pixel size, runs at 30 fps, and holds the picture as a 5-second clip on Track 1.
The size and rate you get
Section titled “The size and rate you get”| You open | Canvas size | Frame rate | First clip |
|---|---|---|---|
| A movie | The size it displays at | The file’s exact rate | The whole movie |
| A sound file | 1920 × 1080 | 30 fps | The whole sound |
| A picture | Its pixel size | 30 fps | 5 seconds of the picture |
Display size
Section titled “Display size”A project built from a movie uses the size the movie displays at, after the file’s rotation. A portrait phone clip opens as 1080 × 1920, not sideways.
An odd-sized movie keeps its size, even though a canvas size you type must be even. Once you change either canvas field, both sides have to be even. See Canvas size.
Exact frame rate
Section titled “Exact frame rate”The rate is read from the file and never rounded to a neighbour, so 29.97 stays 29.97 and 23.976 stays 23.976.
A file’s rate is matched to a standard rate if it’s within 0.01 fps of one: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 48, 50, 59.94 or 60. Any other rate is kept to three decimals, so a 47.3 fps screen recording isn’t called 48. A movie that reports no usable rate opens at 30 fps.
Every file you add to a project is read the same way. To change the project’s rate later, see Project frame rate.
Start a blank project
Section titled “Start a blank project”Choose File ▸ New Project (⌘N), or New Project on the Welcome window. A blank project opens at once, with no dialog, in a window titled “Untitled Project”. It’s 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps, with one empty track.
New Project is always available, whether or not another project is open. Change the size and rate afterwards on the Document tab.
Save it for the first time
Section titled “Save it for the first time”A project made from a file exists only in its window until you save it. It opens already marked as changed, so closing it asks whether to save, even if you’ve done nothing to it yet.
The first File ▸ Save (⌘S) offers to put the project next to the source file, under the source’s name: the save panel opens in that file’s folder, with the file’s name and no extension. Interview.mov becomes Interview.framejob beside it, unless you choose otherwise.
Saving never writes over the source file. A project only ever saves as a .framejob package. See Save, revert and close.
With an agent
Section titled “With an agent”open_project does what opening a file does here, and new_project makes the same blank project.
new_project can save the blank project at a path straight away, adding .framejob if the path lacks it. It won’t use a path another open project holds, or one a window is still opening, and then nothing is created. Close the other project first. Without a path the project stays an untitled draft until save_project. Change the size and rate afterwards with set_canvas. See Tools: projects and history.