Thank you for using Marvin! We hope you find it as helpful as we have for simplifying the visual effects and post production process. By design, Marvin is an unconventional "database" because it does not actually store anything. It's sole purpose is to ingest data from one application, translate it into something easier to work with, and then export it into a different format.
Marvin was built out of necessity to simplify and reduce errors turning over and tracking visual effects shots in both television and features, but it can also be used in many other editorial workflows. Marvin works by identifying shot information based on the location of markers in an Avid sequence. With correctly placed and well-named markers, you can extract a lot of data from Avid that is essential to the VFX process.
Unfortunately, Avid does not make it easy to transfer that data into other programs such as Excel or FileMaker. That’s where Marvin comes to the rescue by importing various, difficult to read file formats such as XML, EDL, & FDX, and translating them into more user-friendly formats that are compatible with other programs. Hooray!
Please note that while Marvin does its best to correctly capture all essential information, it is not a replacement for common sense! Marvin is only as accurate as the data provided to it, so you should always visually inspect and simplify complicated sequences to reduce errors. It is not meant to be used blindly, so double-check that the results jive with your expectations.
If you need help trying to figure something out, reference our online knowledge base or reach out to fellow users in our community. If you run into any problems, please report it using the bug icon in the upper-right corner of every page. Likewise, feel free to make suggestions for future versions that you think would make Marvin even better!