Honours Project (2) - User Generated Editing

I don't know if there is such a thing as user generated editing or if there is another name for this kind of idea, but this is what I am going to call it for now. I am very interested in the process of editing and how scenes of a film or tv show can create a different mood, cut in a certain way than cut in another. My question is therefore "How does editing effect the transmission of a story to the audience".

My idea has evolved since the last time I wrote about it. I have done a lot of research into the development of the internet, companies during those times and the change of the tv and advertising industry. Ideas for my project have come and gone. I now have a very strong project idea that I will investigate over the next few weeks to find out if it's doable.

My main focus still lies in media-convergence and multi-platform distribution and how that will effect the TV industry in the future. With audiences consuming TV content outside the live broadcast concept it is inevitable for the TV industry to change and adapt. My idea is to create a web-series that concentrates on just that with an addition of "user generated editing".
What I mean by this is, the audience creates the edit by viewing scenes in any order desired, which creates a unique edit of the series. With audiences watching episodes of shows or web-series' on youtube, tablets or smartphones often on-the-go, short sequences are preferred. Which makes a web-series consisting of 1-2 min. scenes the perfect fit.

I want to create or have someone create a website that will host a series of videos. One or more videos will pose as the core of the story, with other sequences linked to it in a sort of mind map or tree or based on the idea of YouTube's "end of video suggestions". By viewing the main video(s) the audience will gain access to the "tree" of sequences and is given the freedom to watch the story in an arbitrary way.

This will require a carefully thought out story, that will make sense whichever sequence is watched first. I am planning to write the story, direct the production and edit the content. To help me with this project, I want to assemble a team of writers who will write the screen play to my story, a sound designer to compose the soundtrack, a web designer to create the website and professional or semi-professional actors. I am looking into funding, to be able to pay actors as that is my main concern. Bad acting leads to a bad production.

As for the story, I am still not sure but I have watched a short film adaptation by Dan Trachtenberg of the game Portal, which seemed like the kind of storyline that would fit a series where the audience only gets to see short scenes at a time in a random order until the whole story is revealed.




The idea is to create a kind of Pulp Fiction-esque, Quentin Tarantino style story.