Ever played the game where one person writes a sentence, then another person draws a picture to go with that caption? Then the first caption is folded away, and the paper is passed to another person, who writes a new caption based only on the picture. Then the picture is folded away, and a new picture is drawn based on the second caption, and so on. At the very end, the paper is unfolded, and everybody laughs at how the pictures and captions change from beginning to end.
I thought, what if we did that for AMV's?
Two types of people will contribute to this project: Creators and Caption-writers. The Caption-writers will have the easy - but not trivial - role of writing the captions. The Creators make the AMV-segments. They get to choose their own anime and music based on their interpretation of the caption. And this is what REALLY sets this idea apart from other multi-editor projects. The main focus here is concept. Each AMV-segment will tell its own story. You'll see that a sentence can be interpreted many different ways in the anime world.
Because of this, not all of the AMV-segments have to fit into the fun/dance/action genre. In fact, I'd love to see ALL the genres (drama, action, romance, fun, etc.) in a single, big AMV.
At 20 seconds per AMV-segment, 10 segments and 10 captions will set the completed project at over 4 minutes. Of course, you can mess around with this setup to get a different overall length. The completed AMV would look something like this:
[5 second caption] - [20 second amv] - [5 sec caption] - [20 sec AMV] - etcetc.
I realize that this project would take a long time to complete, since you can't have more than one segment being made at the same time. And to make the whole mystery concept work, the sign-up process would have to be more or less blind. Which means:
(1) Nobody knows who else signs up. (This is probably impossible.)
(2) There won't be a predetermined tracklisting.
As soon as an AMV-segment is submitted, somebody is randomly drawn from the pool of people who signed up to be Caption-writers. And vice versa. Taking away the restraint of a set song will give Creators more freedom on their interpretions. You can give them a list of animes already used to avoid repetitions.
The blind sign-up will give the coordinators a lot more control AND responsibility over the project. They will be the only ones to see all the individual segments as the project goes along. They also have to keep everybody in line and make sure nobody ruins the surprise.
Lastly, to make things clear, I'm not proposing a project where I will be the coordinator. I'm only presenting an idea that I think would be really fun. I have never completed an AMV in my life (although I'm close), so obviously, my experience is a little lacking. If this project does somehow take off, though, I'd be more than happy to sign up.
So, does anybody think this can be done?
