Remember those trailer mashups from a while ago, the ones that made The Shining look like a romantic comedy, or Toy Story mixed with the Requiem for a Dream trailer? I loved them, some of them were so amazing I couldn't believe how clever they were. Well now you can enter a competition and create your own.

Through Boing Boing comes the competition at Free Culture at NYU.

It's slightly different though. Here you're given the choice of four trilogies, you choose which, and you have all the footage at your disposal to make a five to eight minute short parody of the original. The prize? You get to see it aired on the Internet and prestige galore...perhaps even a Hollywood Editing Contract could come your way!...ahem.

Choosing “The Matrix”, one would take all three installments, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions and edit down that footage into a parody of the original, adding or removing elements (voiceovers, scenes, etc) as necessary. You could even use only one of the films of the trilogy– the point is that the original footage of The Matrix is being used to make a short parody out of it.

The key element here is that the short film you ultimately end up with must function as a parody of the original series...we urge you to create works that truly parody the original movies: make fun of the characters, the plots, the hyperbole, the visual style, etc.

Check the rules carefully before you enter, it's very precise stuff...if you do enter, let us know! Personally I'm going to love seeing these. Just to remind us all...

April 14th 2006: Deadline for all remixed parodies
April 27th or 28th: Screening of best parodies