The Association for Visual Arts is sponsoring a three-day movie making project this weekend, and anyone can participate.

Do you fancy yourself as the next Gregg Toland, the cinematographer who filmed such classics as "Citizen Kane," "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "Wuthering Heights"?

The folks at the Association for Visual Arts want you to prove it.

AVA is sponsoring an event called Capture Film Project 2013 to put local folks behind the lens. The footage shot on digital cameras, including smartphones will be given to three separate editing teams; each will create a finished film. Music for the films will be recorded specially for the project by three local bands.

Oh, and all of this will take place in three days beginning Friday.

"I'm on the board at AVA," says project manager and local filmmaker Bobby Stone, "and they were discussing ways to expand our mission. I suggested doing a community-sourced film project, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time. It's pretty unique doing it this way."

The finished projects will be shown at Track 29 at 5 p.m. Sunday during a fundraising event for AVA.

Jonathan Taplin, a digital media expert at the University of Southern California, will choose one as the best during a live Internet hookup during the event. Three $800 cash prizes will be given for Best Film Award, Best Footage Award and Peoples Choice.

AVA Executive Director Anne Willson says the organization has been doing more with film over the last couple of years, and she especially likes that many people can be involved in the Capture Film Project.

"We were very interested in the participatory aspect of it. We wanted people to get involved. Numerous people get to participate and it celebrates Chattanooga," she says.

On Friday at 5 p.m., interested people with a digital camera -- such as the one on your smartphone -- should show up at Walker Pavilion at Coolidge Park, where organizers will announce the project's theme. It will be broad in scope, but with an artistic slant, so those cute baby movies you've been hanging onto for years probably won't make the final cut.

Once given the theme, filmmakers have 24 hours to shoot as many as five scenes, with each being no more than 30 seconds, although they can be less. All scenes must be submitted as pieces of raw, unedited footage.

Filmmakers can upload the work online at capturechatt.org or take it by the AVA offices at 30 Frazier Ave., where it can be uploaded.

Deadline is 5 p.m. Saturday.

Once that is done, editing teams from Atomic Film, Southern University and Cook Box Productions will be given the footage.

Also on Friday, members of the bands Strung Like a Horse, Summer Dregs and Creative Underground will be paired with the three editing teams and will begin recording three brand-new songs to be used as soundtracks for the projects.

After the viewing party, Sunday, the finished films will be available on the AVA website at www.avarts.org.

Contact staff writer Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-7576354.