Automation Blocks : Insert and Sort Timeline Clips by Label Color for Multicam Editing

Question

I'm working as a professional wedding video editor and regularly handle multi-camera edits with 3 angles. I'm trying to automate my timeline structure using Automation Blocks to streamline the color correction workflow.

My Editing Setup

Camera 1 (Main Cam): Center camera — always goes to V1 (and A1 for audio)

Camera 2 (Yellow Label): Cinematic — should go to V2 (video), A1 (audio)

Camera 3 (Brown Label): Secondary — should go to V3 (video), A1 (audio)

What I Want to Achieve:
I need two Automation Blocks scripts
 
1. Insert Logic During Editing
When I select a clip from the Project panel:

It should detect the label color (Yellow or Brown)

Then automatically insert it into specific tracks (V2 or V3) based on label

Audio should always go to A1

This should work on the active sequence, at the playhead position

2. Sort Logic After Editing
Once the edit is complete:

Script should loop through all clips in the timeline

Detect their label color

Move each clip to its assigned video track

No audio change

Useful for organizing tracks before doing color grading (which I do per camera)

What I've Tried

Tried to build the "insert" block myself, but it fails with error:Unknown block type  pr_get_selected_project_items

I also need to make sure the script works across multiple projects and doesn't break due to color naming differences or errors.

Mathias Moehl · Accepted Answer

I'm not a developer, so I don’t fully understand scripting — but I’m trying to learn.

What I want to achieve is:

Insert only the video component of a clip, and skip the audio part.

For example:
When I select a clip from the bin (like an .mp4 file that contains both video and audio), I want only the video to be inserted into the timeline, based on label color (like V2 for yellow, V3 for brown, etc.) — but I don’t want the audio part of that clip inserted.

In the current script, the audio gets inserted (e.g., on A2, A3), but I only need the video.
Is there a way to remove or prevent the audio right after the clip is inserted?

Can you please guide me or help modify the script or can you provide one more script xml file it will help me alot ?

Thanks again for your amazing support and tools.

As described in this discussion, unfortunately, there is no way to insert only the video of a clip without audio. But also in that discussion, @merlincinematic explains a workaround:
1. lock all audio tracks
2. insert the clips (this will insert the audio on a new track, since all existing ones are locked)

3. delete the new audio track again.

I extended the script from yesterday, such that it now uses exactly this workaround to only insert video.

You find it in the Community Library at

Sequence/Populate/Insert Clips into Tracks of Active Sequence At CTI Grouped by Label Color Skip Audio.xml

Mathias Moehl · Answer

Concerning the first tool: I just added this to the Community Library for you:

Sequence/Populate/Insert Clips into Tracks of Active Sequence At CTI Grouped by Label Color.xml

It inserts all currently selected project items into the active sequence at the current time. Based ono their label color, they are inserted either in V3 (brown item), V2 (yellow items) or V1 (all other items). Here is the block code explained:

As you can see, I first sort the selected project items into lists. I do that, because then all selected brown items can be inserted into the active sequence using a single call of the "add pproject items" block. If we would insert each of them separately, they would all start at the current time and replace/overwrite each other. But now, only the first inserted clip in each track starts at the current time and the next one starts where the previous one ends.

Currently, Clips which insert their video in V3 insert their audio in A3, not A1. I think there is no way to avoid this, since the add project items block has no separate inputs for audio and video track (that would be a good feature request, though).

Automation Blocks : Insert and Sort Timeline Clips by Label Color for Multicam Editing

My Editing Setup

What I Want to Achieve:

When I select a clip from the Project panel:

2. Sort Logic After Editing

What I've Tried

2 replies

🎥 My Editing Setup:

🧠 What I Want to Achieve:

✅ 1. Insert Logic During Editing:

✅ 2. Sort Logic After Editing:

🔧 What I've Tried:

My Editing Setup

What I Want to Achieve:

When I select a clip from the Project panel:

2. Sort Logic After Editing

What I've Tried

🎥 My Editing Setup:

🧠 What I Want to Achieve:

✅ 1. Insert Logic During Editing:

✅ 2. Sort Logic After Editing:

🔧 What I've Tried:

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