Season 37-39 OpeningSeason 40 OpeningSeason 41-42 OpeningSeason 43-44 Opening
Austin City Limits – Season 48-49 Opening Sequence
Austin City Limits – Season 45 & 47 Opening Sequence
Austin City Limits – Season 46 Opening Sequence
Austin City Limits – Season 43-44 Opening Sequence
The Austin City Limits season 43 opening sequence focuses upon aspects of gathering and anticipation before an ACL live music taping. This concept required more of a production than in previous opening sequences. The ACL producers, crew, and KLRU team members all contributed efforts to create this opening. We staged a video shoot of volunteers entering the venue. This allowed us to focus on creating the visual excitement and anticipation of audience members entering the venue. I bookended this footage with drone footage I captured of the city at the beginning, and shots I captured during tapings.
We asked the Black Angels to contribute music to the opening. After reviewing some of the footage and pacing, the Black Angels provided a perfect musical accompaniment.
Austin City Limits – Season 41-42 Opening Sequence
For the season 41 opening, I focused on the cultural elements that contribute and influence the music scene here in Austin, TX. I was influenced by something I viewed on TV that used still photography to break up the video footage. With help from the ACL producers, I planned a list of shots to capture all over town.
The Austin City Limits season 41 opening sequence features scenes from around Austin, including; Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, Austin Speed Shop, Franklin Barbecue, 5th Street Studios, The Fit Pit Boxing and Fitness Academy, TXRD Banked Track Roller Derby, Southside Tattoo, Cheer Up Charlies, The Broken Spoke, The Skylark Lounge, & Dive Bar and Lounge.
In keeping with the tradition of ACL openings, I wanted to include the crew in as much as I could, the street musician, receiver of the ACL tattoo, the lead singer of the band Night Drive, and the patrons within Dive Bar and Lounge are all crew members. The bands featured in the opening are: Night Drive, The Soul Supporters, Hard Proof, The Skyline Wranglers & Two Tons of Steel.
Opening theme music by White Denim, song title “New Shake”
Austin City Limits – Season 40 Opening Sequence
Many years ago, I became intrigued by a technique called video mapping. This technique serves as the inspiration for the opening sequence. The previous openings I created highlighted our new studio and venue with wide time-lapse shots. This go round, I wanted to stray from focusing on the venue and instead create something that embodies the 40 years of rich history of Austin City Limits. “The history is in the details” concept is what I was going for, so I included more instruments, details of the show, and generally tighter shots.
As is a tradition of many past ACL openings, this current opening starts out with signage from Austin music venues. Terry Lickona and I felt it was a great way to establish the Austin music scene. From the hundreds of artists that have performed over these 40 years, we narrowed down a list of artists to be included to about 40.
We discussed having Gary Clark Jr. compose an original music piece for the opening. Gary Clark Jr. was excited about the possibility of being involved. To give him an idea of how the opening footage was developing, I put together a sample set to Gary Clark Jr.’s “Travis County”. The song fit what I was looking for, and as production went along it was clear that we already had the right song. Heck, it was about Travis County, and we are Austin City Limits. It was a perfect fit.
Here are a couple of fun details in the intro you might want to look for if you missed them: Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan appear twice in the opening. The second time Willie is seen it is a projection of Willie from the pilot episode on his guitar “trigger”, while he is playing it during rehearsal for the Hall of Fame event. The first time Stevie is seen, he’s projected onto Antone’s on 5th (no longer there, of course). I changed the marquee to read “Tonight: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr.”
Austin City Limits – Seasons 37-39 Opening Sequence
Austin City Limits had not used an opening sequence for many years prior to season 37. As a lifetime fan of the show, I felt the opening sequence (AKA intro) was an important part of the experience. I can still see the openings of the past in my mind. I remember watching the show as a child, when Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues” was the opening theme song, accompanied by awesome visuals of life around Austin. Because of this, I decided I would try to pitch the idea of a new opening sequence to the producers of ACL.
The Austonian was a client, so I took advantage and got a nice wide shot of downtown from the observation deck during SXSW. I used that with some shots of the outside of the Moody Theater to pitch the idea. The ACL team loved it. Once ACL’s producers were on board, they started the process of getting Explosions in the Sky to record the theme music. In the meantime, I continued collecting potential shots to add into the piece. Terry Lickona (the Executive Producer of ACL) suggested the shot on Congress bridge, with the Austin City Limits sign, as a tribute to opening sequences from ACL’s past seasons.