DC Metro Final Cut Pros

OpenCut.org describes their new film competition as “completely open-source” and “designed to encourage people to take professionally shot material and edit it in their own way.” Explaining that “there is no ‘one way’ to tell a story,” the competition is looking for their footage to be “re-edited and re-told from many different vantage points and perspectives.”

The beauty of the concept, of course, is that the playing field is leveled for editors in terms of source media quality. No anecdotes about pre-production nightmares, or disclaimers about production costs and snags. In fact, the competition insists that, “OpenCut material will always be shot on RED to preserve the highest quality available to filmmakers today.” (No coincidence that OpenCut is “primarily sponsored by” Silverado Studios LLC, which offers, among other services, “production of RED-based material.”)

The winner of this first competition (dubbed “OpenCut 1.0″), gets a new AJA IO HD from Silverado, will be recognized as the “editor-of-record” at IMDB and “will have their cut submitted to multiple film festivals.” Registration for OpenCut 1.0 seems to have closed already, but future competitions are already brewing.

It should be quite interesting to see how many editors take up the challenge, and how the amateurs fare against the pros. Sort of a “Folgers Crystals challenge” for the video generation:

“We are here at the OpenCut competition, where we’ve secretly replaced the profession editors they usually employ with Ms. Crabapple’s 6th grade video production class. Let’s see if anyone can tell the difference!”

Something tells me the seasoned cutters will rise to the top.