Category: Contest Opening

I was running very behind on a lot of things related to the AMV Contest in 2023, so when I needed to make an opening for the year's theme of "Idols," I just reached for the first thing that came to mind: the very easy dance sequences from Pride of Orange and one of the songs from the soundtracks included with the Blu-Rays. Very simple and basic, but it worked to get the info I needed to convey out to the audience.

With future years not having a specific con-wide theme, I'm not sure what I'll be doing for openings in the future, but I'll definitely need to start planning further in advance, so I'm not rushing a slapped-together opening like this again.

Anime - Pride of Orange
Music - Smile Princess - ハレ、のちドリーミングっ!○
Completed April 2023

YouTube Link

For some reason, I watch a lot of competitive cooking shows, especially things like Top Chef, Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Guy's Grocery Games. For Anime Boston's food theme in 2020/2022, I decided to do an opening sort of parodying cooking shows in general. It's cute and silly, but man, I'm a terrible actor.

Video: Original Work
Audio: Bensound.com - Little Idea
Completed May 2022
YouTube Link

I was absolutely buried in several other editing projects when I needed to put together the opening for Anime Boston 2019’s Tales of the Shogunate year.

I ended up just slapping together a very simple series of clips from the first three Lone Wolf and Cub movies and overlaying the instructions and warnings. Simple and effective, but not very engaging. I’ll have to step up for next year.

YouTube Link

The theme for Anime Boston 2018 was To The Stars… but I couldn’t come up with any good ideas for an opening that were doable in the time we had before the convention, so I ended up falling back to the structure of the 2015 opening, and pulled out a bunch of images of iconic anime spaceships to pair with the instructions and warnings.

This wasn’t my best effort, but still was pretty nice.

YouTube Link

2017 marked the 15th edition of Anime Boston, so I wanted to play with that history theme, and looked back at earlier years of openings for this one. The opening for 2006 in particular was ripe for a parody, which is what ended up happening.

Unlike previous years of parodies, I ended up shooting the “modern-day” segments as a solo effort, with the “past” segments taken directly from the 2006 opening. The hockey player segment in particular was an interesting bit to shoot, as I had to be careful not to cross the center line from either position.

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Adam decided to hand off being the AMV Contest Coordinator to me after Anime Boston 2015, and suggested this Star Wars parody for 2016 as a nod to the change.

With more time to plan and put together this opening, it came off a lot better than our 2014 effort. We originally planned a lot more digital effects (full lightsaber animation), but ran out of time before the convention to actually do it. It got a lot of laughs at the actual showing, which was our real goal, so we’re pretty happy with it.

YouTube Link

After the issues we had with 2014, I decided on a much simpler plan for Anime Boston 2015’s Mecha and Monsters theme.

I found a huge gigapixel photograph of the Boston skyline at night, and a bunch of high resolution pictures of sci-fi and monster movie toys to pop out from behind the buildings with the instructions and warnings.

The opening worked well, and I’ve used a similar format in other years when time was running short without a better plan.

YouTube Link

For Anime Boston 2015, the theme was Magic & Mischief, so a parody of The Princess Bride seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, lots of scheduling conflicts pushed the only chance we had to shoot this until just a couple weeks before the convention. So Adam, the AMV Contest Coordinator, and I shot this in his kitchen in about three takes with no chance to rehearse or reshoot. And both of us are terrible actors, so the rush job shows.

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I joined the staff for Anime Boston in 2013, and took on handling a lot of things surrounding the AMV Contest, including the opening, which had been dormant for several years at that point. The contest opening traditionally had been a parody of a movie scene that includes the various instructions about the rules and warnings for the showing, so for the year’s theme of Tales of Yōkai (Ghosts or Spirits), I decided to do a knockoff of the classic Tales From the Crypt opening.

I shot this at my grandparents' house, which is filled with interesting knicknacks and has a very nice vertical layout that mimicked the path the original opening took. I decided to go up the stairs instead of down because ending in the attic worked better than stopping at the front door. The neat bobbing figures were part of the year’s themed art, and there were exactly the right number to pair one with each instruction.

It took a few tries to time the movement right, so I was pretty exhausted by the time I was done shooting (stairs are great cardio, if you weren’t aware).

YouTube Link