1stPass

This module connects to 1stPass, the live production console for macOS that builds your first cut while the show is still on air. Every camera cut, fade, marker and title is logged the instant it happens, stamped with frame-accurate timecode from an LTC box or the Mac's own clock. When the show wraps, export a ready-to-edit multicam timeline straight to Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve, with every cut already made and every marker and title already in place. Run the whole show from your Stream Deck, with live tally on every camera button.

Configuration

• Host: IP address of the machine running 1stPass (default: localhost)
• Port: WebSocket port for the Companion relay server (default: 19455)

Actions

• Create Marker — Create a marker at the current timecode. By default uses the button's text as the marker name; switch to "Custom" to enter your own. Optional Type (Standard / To Do / Chapter) and custom color.
• Quick Marker — For whatever has no button of its own. Stamps a marker at the current timecode, brings 1stPass to the front and puts the cursor in its quick-marker field, so the director types what happened and presses Return (Escape takes the marker back). Optional Type and custom color, so a "To Do, red" button leaves only the words to type; left on Default, the marker takes the type and color last used in the console. Pressing it again while a marker is being typed doesn't start a second one.
• Next Title — Record the next title in the sequence at the current timecode.
• Select Camera — Set a camera (1–99) to standby (preview). Does nothing if that camera is already in standby, or if 1stPass has no camera with that number.
• Camera Cut — Cut to the standby camera (promotes standby to program) and record to the timeline.
• Camera Fade — Fade to the standby camera and record the transition using the event's configured fade duration.

Camera control

These reach the physical camera bound to that cell in 1stPass, rather than the switcher. Each takes only a camera number.

• Camera Focus (AF push) — One-shot autofocus. The camera must be in manual focus: this is the AF-ON gesture, and a body already autofocusing refuses it.

Exposure:

• Camera Iris + / − — + closes the iris, to a higher f-number. This is the one control where + means less light: an f-number rises as the lens shuts, and that is the direction a shooter reads a lens in.
• Camera Shutter + / − — + lengthens the shutter, so brighter.
• Camera EV + / − — Exposure compensation.
• Camera ISO + / − — + raises ISO.
• Camera WB + / − — Color temperature; + is warmer. Only movable while the camera's white balance is on a K setting — on auto or a preset the body owns the number and the press does nothing.

Shading — the trims a shot gets painted with:

• Camera Master Pedestal + / − — Black level; + lifts it.
• Camera WB Shift Amber/Blue + / − — + toward blue, − toward amber.
• Camera WB Shift Green/Magenta + / − — + toward magenta, − toward green.
• Camera Saturation + / −
• Camera Color Phase + / − — + rotates toward magenta.

The steps walk the value ladder the camera itself publishes, so a press moves to the next value that body actually offers — not a number we guessed. The camera has to have a body bound to it in 1stPass (Cameras → Edit Camera → Control Source); a cell with nothing bound does nothing.

Not every camera has every control. LUMIX bodies have no saturation or color phase to trim, and a fully manual or adapted lens has no iris the body can drive; those presses report that the camera is not reporting such a control, and change nothing. The same wording appears for a second or two right after a camera connects, while it is still telling 1stPass what it has — press again.

A press that cannot be honored is not an error and leaves last_error alone — the module logs why and the button is unaffected. The usual reasons:

• No camera body bound to that cell, or the body is not answering.
• The camera's current mode owns the setting. A body in shutter priority owns the iris, one in Program owns both, a color temperature means nothing unless white balance is on K, and a LUMIX in Creative Video has no exposure compensation at all.
• The camera is not reporting such a control — saturation and color phase on a LUMIX, or an iris on a lens the body cannot drive. Also briefly true just after a connect, before the camera has listed everything it has.
• The setting is already at the end of its range.
• The body is in AF, for a focus push.

Presets

The Cameras category has a ready-made button for each camera, 1 through 20. Drag one onto a button and it is finished — no options to fill in.

Each preset combines the Select Camera action with the Camera Tally & Name feedback, so pressing the button arms that camera and the button itself shows what the camera is doing. Cameras your show does not have stay blank and do nothing when pressed.

The Markers category has a Quick Marker button, ready as it is.

Feedbacks

• Connection Status — Boolean feedback that changes the button appearance based on whether the module is currently connected to 1stPass.

• Camera Tally & Name — Colors and labels the button from 1stPass. The only thing to set is the camera number:

  • Program — red background.
  • Preview — green, or blue if that camera is set to blue preview in 1stPass (Cameras → Edit Camera → Preview Tally, for red/green color blindness). Program is always red.
  • Off air — dark background with the camera's own color on the text, so a tally light watching the button goes out.
  • No such camera — blank and black.

  The button's label comes from the camera name in 1stPass, so renaming a camera in the app renames the button. Untick Use camera name from 1stPass to keep your own label instead.

This makes the button work with tally lights that mirror a Stream Deck button's color, such as Companion Buddy: point one at a camera button and it becomes that camera's tally.

Variables

• connection_status — Current connection state (Connected, Disconnected, Bad config).
• last_marker_timecode / last_marker_text — Most recent marker created.
• last_title_timecode — Most recent title recorded.
• last_cut_timecode / last_fade_timecode — Most recent cut/fade timecodes.
• last_quick_marker_timecode — When the most recent quick marker was stamped.
• program_camera — Name of the camera currently on program.
• standby_camera — Name of the camera currently in standby (preview).
• camera_1_name … camera_20_name — Camera names as configured in 1stPass. Empty for camera numbers the show does not have.
• camera_1_state … camera_20_state — program, preview, idle, or empty when there is no such camera.
• last_error — Most recent error reported by the server or by the module (e.g. dropped commands when disconnected).

program_camera, standby_camera and the camera_* variables follow 1stPass live, including cuts made in the app itself. They are cleared while the module is disconnected, so nothing on a surface keeps showing a state that has moved on.

Requirements

• 1stPass app running on macOS, with the Companion relay enabled.
• The camera control actions (focus, EV, ISO) need 1stPass 1.2.0 build 94 or newer, and a camera with a control source bound to it. Against an older build the app answers unknown_command, which does land in last_error.
• Quick Marker needs 1stPass 1.2 build 143 or newer. Against an older build the app answers unknown_command, which lands in last_error.
• Tally feedback and the camera presets need 1stPass 1.2 or newer. Against an older build the camera buttons stay blank and the module logs a warning saying so; everything else still works.