This was asked in a PM, and I said I'd post it here to clarify my idea a little.
By "veteran AMVer" I meant someone who would have a firm grasp on all the technical aspects of creating a multi-editor project. I certainly do not, and that's why I'd never be able to do something like this on my own. If I did have the technical know-how, I'd dive right in, but the learning curve is a little steep and I hate doing things half-ass.
Regarding The Musical itself, what I really had in mind was selecting one musical from American theatre that has a decent story to tell and whose songs are AMV-friendly (no opera...) and create a "show." Many people have used songs from musicals for their AMVs, but I would like to see something done as a collaborative effort with ONE musical. Namely, using various anime, we'd go through one musical production much as it would be seen on stage. It wouldn't so much be a mishmash of AMVs as a retelling of a known musical, starring anime characters and places. Regardless of whether the viewer is familiar with the stage production, the story could still be understand by watching The Musical.
I even considered something really radical like staging “Romeo & Juliet” using songs from various musicals that support the story, but I'd rather have the same voices singing the same songs for the sake of continuity. A conglomerate musical might better be left for a future project, after we've gotten our feet wet.
OK, I'm going to speculate even though I said it was a bad thing in the hopes that someone *glances at the ME Project forum* will become interested in such a project. Jeez, I'm such a hypocrite!
-Whatever musical is chosen, it should be compatible with a broad range of anime. “Phantom of the Opera” is fun …until you realize there are very few characters, one of whom is rarely seen (The Phantom), several of whom are annoying as hell and all of whom generally go on and on and on and on about their problems in operatic style. “Annie Get Your Gun,” is a great musical, but some people might find the songs old fashioned and the setting of the story a little difficult to recreate (a Wild West show is prominent). “Moulin Rouge,” let’s not go there. That is not a musical from the theatre.
The musical also shouldn’t be too big or complicated. “Les Miserables” has great songs, varied settings and characters and easily adapted storylines, but it’s also incredibly long and would require significant hacking to bring down to a manageable size.
-Insofar as cohesiveness is concerned, how the editing responsibilities are divided up would depend upon, first, how many people jumped on board, and second, the length of the songs. We don’t want burnout and I’d rather people take as small or large a chunk of work as they want. In other words, instead of having someone responsible for an entire song, it would be nice to offer smaller segments from each song, as many multi-editor projects do (although if someone wanted the whole song, they could sign up for it). The only stipulation might be that each song have the same anime in it, so that when those segments are combined, you’re not suddenly looking at Ranma and Mousse instead of Ed and Al. (Note: this switching anime in the middle of songs could be fun, but it might be distracting and self-defeating, particularly if the musical is not humorous in nature). Using one anime for the entire musical would be the ideal, but getting enough people together with quality source footage might be impossible. An informal survey of interest and qualified editors would need to be taken before one anime was decided upon, if any.
Hmm, what else…. Ah yes: The Rules. Yay rules.
1. Editors must adhere to the story line of the original musical. There will be no creative spins on the plot, new characters or jarring discrepancies in atmosphere.
2. No subtitles. Duh. Preferably no fansubs whatsoever, unless they are of exceedingly high quality.
3. The main characters must be clearly identified and remain consistent. If a role calls for a woman in her late teens/early 20’s, Faye can be used, but not [insert little girl anime character here]. Further, the characters they interact with must make sense. Faye is not going to be madly in love with Ein or [insert little boy anime character here]. Remember, the point is to make the musical coherent. There are AMVs all over the place that mess around with songs from musicals in amusing ways, but that is not the goal with this project.
4. Lip synching will be required for at least some part of each song/song segment. The more the better.
Feel free to discuss, criticize, compliment or toss your own ideas in.
