Developing Tank vs Custom Scripts

Custom scripts are a real answer for assistant editors with the skills to build them. A Python script, a bit of Javascript, or a few terminal commands that parse an EDL, populate a tracker, and email a PDF on export will save you hours. Scripts work right up until the day they stop, and they stop at 6am on a turnover day.

Show conditions move underneath them. The editor switches sequence naming conventions. The next show uses a different marker color scheme. Avid updates and shifts the export format. Every one of those is a debugging session for whoever wrote the script, who is also the person finishing the cut, prepping dailies, and pulling a VFX turnover.

Scripts travel badly, too. A workflow one AE built for one show breaks when a new AE takes over or the post supervisor rewrites the delivery specs. No shared version history, no interface for the editor to look at, and rarely any documentation.

Developing Tank grew out of maintaining too many one-off scripts. It reads AVB, AAF, EDL, and ALE files, runs VFX detection and change tracking, and produces EDL, AVB, CSV, and PDF from one workflow with nobody writing or patching code. Marker rules live in the project settings where the whole team can see them, edit them, and count on them across every sequence upload.

Keep your scripts if they are stable and you trust them. Trade them in when you notice how much of each show goes into maintaining, debugging, and rewriting automation that should have kept working.