Project Editor

Pendant of Power [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 4]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026AMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the fourth and final week of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Signature Objects,” where the editors were given a week to create a video showcasing an important object (specifically an object, not a character) and the significance to the character(s) that used it.

I was really very short on editing time during this week, dealing with several real-life priorities, so this one felt more thrown-together than the other weeks in the end.

I didn’t have time to ponder alternate ideas, so I had to run with the first thought I had, which was the pendant from Laputa: Castle in the Sky. My usual crutch of instrumental production music got used again, but with the time crunch, it didn’t annoy me quite as much this week.

One other editor said during the reveal stream that they had considered the same object for their video, but they thankfully had gone with a different idea, so we didn’t end up clashing. In the end, not a great video, but given the time constraints, not a bad one, either.

Video – Laputa: Castle In the Sky
Audio – Epic Score – Destiny and Honor
Completed August 2025

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link

The Pageantry of Ritual [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 3]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026LAMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the third week of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Guilds of Ravnica,” where editors were given a week to create a video representing one of the ten Ravnica guilds from the Magic: The Gathering game setting.

I had a really hard time coming up with an idea for this one, as nothing I came up with seemed to fit any of the descriptions of the Guilds. Not being familiar with any of the MTG lore (I had stopped playing the game more than 20 years earlier, between the Tempest and Urza blocks) also didn’t help me.
I eventually settled on using the recently-released movie Conclave, which I’d enjoyed (though I think the book was better), and waffled between presenting the church as Orzhov or Azorius before landing on Orzhov. For the audio, I annoyed myself by going back to my old standby for short timeframe videos of instrumental production music and Two Steps From Hell, which still managed to work in creating a fairly suspenseful thriller-style video.

Not my most successful week, but I still like the resulting video.

Video – Conclave
Audio – Two Steps From Hell – Rapid Eye Movement
Completed July 2025

YouTube Link

What Might Have Been [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 2]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026AMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for week two of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Flip the Script,” where editors were given a week to create a video that misleads the viewer about the source material.

I was actively watching My Dress-Up Darling at the time, and just recently finished the arc with Shinju wanting to cosplay. So that gave me the idea of making Marin the “losing” girl in the story and setting up a fake Gojo/Shinju pairing. I was reluctant to use the reprise of “I’m Not That Girl” from Wicked, since I’d used the original version for a Toradora video several years before (for an actual “losing” girl character in Ami), but the theming and song length worked out too well not to go with it.

I’ll admit, I was cackling evilly at several points during the making of this one, and several people reacted with “you made Marin cry!” sorts of comments during the reveal stream, which greatly amused me.

Video – My Dress-Up Darling
Audio – Kristin Chenoweth – I’m Not That Girl (reprise) [from Wicked]
Completed July 2025

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Inspector Basil [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 1]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026FMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the first week of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Enneagrams,” where the participants were given one week to create a video that was a character profile showcasing one of the nine enneagram personality types.

I didn’t have a solid idea at first, but I knew I wanted to use a short song because of the condensed timeframe. Going through my collection of music, I pulled out a few possibilities, but then stumbled across the Inspector Gadget opening theme. I had had a conversation with someone recently where The Great Mouse Detective had come up, so the immediate association between Basil and Type 5 – Investigator clicked in my head.

I ended up tracking down an instrumental version of the theme because the lyrics felt a bit too literal for the setting, and I think that was the right choice.

It got a good reaction in the reveal stream, and several compliments after the week ended.

Video – The Great Mouse Detective
Audio – Shuki Levy – Inspector Gadget Theme (Instrumental)
Completed July 2025

YouTube Link

Rule of Thirds (POE 2024 Round 2)

LantisEscudoJune 15, 2025AMV, Project Editor, Videos

I was incredibly busy during POE 2024, so I only managed to participate in one round, Round 2. That round had the theme of “Hobby Lobby,” where we were asked to create a video in a week that showcased characters enjoying a hobby.

I’d had “Life Through a Lens” on my ideas list for a while after it popped up in a Spotify Weekly list for me, and it felt like a perfect match for the theme, using characters that were photographers. I had debated several different video sources as options, as well as going massively multi-source, but I ended up deciding to limit it to three series, largely to make the title pun. The Rule of Thirds is a photography framing technique where you mentally divide the image into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, and then frame your photo so that the object of interest is near one of the four intersection points of the one-third lines.

Scrubbing through the footage for usable scenes took longer than I planned, since I’d only actually watched one of the three (my backlog is deep and only growing), but once I’d managed all of that, the video itself came together pretty quickly.

I never looked at the results of the round judging, so I don’t really know how well it was received, but a couple people did mention to me that they enjoyed it.

Video – Photo Kano, Tada Never Falls In Love, Waiting In the Summer
Audio – Jackson Harris – Life Through a Lens
Completed September 2024

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Hinako’s Lullaby [Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 4]

LantisEscudoJune 28, 2024AMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the final round of Shabu Showdown was “Seven Deadly Sins,” and I needed “Broadway Musical” on my bingo card to complete the double bingo, so I started looking for songs that could fit. Sleeping With Hinako had come up in conversation a few days before and I thought it would be amusing to use again, so I settled on Sloth as my sin pretty early. I was looking for lullabies or songs about sleeping and found Sylvia’s Lullaby from Finding Neverland that felt like it’d work pretty well.

I did also have footage from Training With Hinako or Bathing With Hinako available, but neither of them ended up having any scenes that fit.

All in all, it was a fun little edit, but it did feel pretty similar to my video Naptime from back in 2010.

Video – Sleeping With Hinako
Audio – Laura Michelle Kelly – Sylvia’s Lullaby (from Finding Neverland)
Completed December 2023

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Beyond the Shire [Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 3]

LantisEscudoJanuary 11, 2024Award Winner, LAMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the third round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was “Spectacular Settings,” where editors were given one week to edit a video focusing on the scenery or setting of a source, rather than the plot or characters.

I immediately decided to use the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, because of all the huge sweeping establishing shots in the films. The song was a lot harder to come up with, and I reached out for suggestions, and ended up getting the excellent song I ended up using from a link provided by VioletSkies.

I was also dealing with several real life things outside the event at the time, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the whole song, so I edited a short version of the video that ended with the end of the first movie, just to have something to submit in case I ran out of time. I also decided once I started the second segment to focus just on Sam and Frodo’s path through the films for narrative simplicity, though that did mean giving up the initial inspiration shot for the video (the epic long helicopter shot of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli running across the landscape in pursuit of the Orc army).

In the end, it came together much better than I initially thought it would, and was given the “Epic Fantasy” coordinator’s award at the end of the event.

Video – Lord of the Rings movie trilogy
Audio – Tommee Profitt x MILCK – BEYOND
Completed November 2023

YouTube Link

The Lives and Times of Dirk the Daring (Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 2)

LantisEscudoJanuary 2, 2024FMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the second round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was 20th Century Time Capsule – editors had a week to create a video with a video or audio source (and preferably both) originating between 1901 and 2000.

My original idea was really dark, with Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” to the 2000 movie Battle Royale, which I decided was a bit too much for this sort of event. I did like the idea of using the song, though, and so I started looking through my collection of discs when I remembered Dragon’s Lair, which fit the song really well, and still was lighthearted enough that it felt more appropriate.

All of the footage segments were very short (usually under 60 seconds, with the deaths even shorter), so I divided them into three buckets: “successes” which I used for most of the first section of the video, “deaths” which filled most of the remainder of the video, and “skeleton bounce,” which was all of the variants of the game over animation. If I remember correctly, there are 27 different versions with the same animation over different backgrounds. I ended up only using it for the final segment of the video, and synched up several of them to cut between on the beat for that final shot.

People definitely enjoyed it, and a few suggested I send it to events that accept video game and western animation videos, which I may do.

Video – Dragon’s Lair
Audio – Queen – Another One Bites the Dust
Completed November 2023

YouTube Link

Visions of Disaster (Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 1)

LantisEscudoJanuary 2, 2024AMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the first round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was Owl House Covens – editors had a week to create a video illustrating one of the covens from the show Owl House. The only one that sparked an idea quickly for me was the Oracle coven, which dealt with fortune-telling, clairvoyance, divination, etc. 

I had recently been thinking about Sailor Moon, and remembered Rei (Sailor Mars) and her divinations using the sacred fire in her home temple, but it took me longer than I expected to find the footage I needed. I had forgotten how much was in the Doom Tree arc and had been looking in the S season instead. I interspersed the Sailor Moon footage with footage from a bunch of other series and movies that showed the aftermath of major natural disasters to indicate what she was seeing visions of.

For audio, I went back to my familiar well of production music and Two Steps From Hell, which worked for the video, but I decided after this round that I wouldn’t use TSFH for the rest of the event, wanting to break out of that familiar rut.

Reactions to it were pretty positive, and I’m pretty happy with the result.

Video – Sailor Moon (original and R), Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Your Name, Weathering With You, Princess Mononoke, Millennium Actress, The Wind Rises, Ponyo
Audio – Two Steps From Hell – Mercy in Darkness
Completed November 2023

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Into Infinity (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 6)

LantisEscudoNovember 14, 2023AMV, Project Editor, Videos

After the previous week, I was planning to use a source I knew, but when the theme “Extraordinary Voyages” got announced, and specifically referenced Jules Verne in the challenge, my mind immediately went to another show I owned but hadn’t watched yet, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Thankfully, it was only 39 episodes to scrub instead of close to 200, but it still took a decent amount of time. I went back to the Two Steps From Hell well yet again (third time in six rounds) for the audio, because “Beyond the Horizon” fit the tone of epic exploration so well.

Overall, a solid effort that scored fairly well, and it definitely moved Nadia up my backlog to-watch list, so I can see the context of some of those wacky scenes I found while scrubbing.

Anime – Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
Music – Two Steps From Hell – Beyond the Horizon
Completed December 2022

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link