I need to write a script (based on basic functions) to process /image/audio/video files. The process is mainly filesystem tasks and converts. The database of files has been stored by mysql. The script is simple but cause heavy tasks on the system; for example renaming/converting/copying thousands of file in a run. The script does not read the content of files into memory, it just manage the commands for sub-processes. The main weight is on the communication with filesystem. The script will be used regularly for new files. My concern is about performance. I am thinking of

1. Shell script
2. a complied language like C

Please advise which programming language is more suitable for this purpose and why?

UPDATE: An example is to scan a folder for images, convert them with ImageMagick, move files to destination folder, get file info, then update the database. As you can see, the process has no room for optimization, and most of languages have similar APIs for popular programs like ImageMagick, MySQL, etc. Thus, it can be written in any language. I just wish to reduce resource usage by speeding up the long loop.

NOTE: I know that questions about comparing languages are not favorable, but I really had problem to choose, because the problems can appear in action.