Play VLC m3u / mp4 ?

Tried using Automator to open / play either an m3u or mp4, not sure if I'm doing it right ? I ended up just dragging an m3u into Automator then use Open Finder Items which works fine although I can't tell it to play from start or any other options I might want to control.

My iMac is set to startup at a certain time of day an trying to get it to play an m3u or mp4 at startup using VLC.