May 6, 2006

• Elvis Movies 2: Now available only on the web

  ElvisMovies Double Trouble Feature

  “ElvisMovies 2″ is is my latest MikeVideo masterpiece, for which I’m slowly building a webpage on AllThingsMike, and why I haven’t updated the blog for a few days, I am presenting the second attempt at creating a seamless “ElvisMovies”, sequel to the original from 2003.  (Turn off the music player in the left hand sidebar of the blog prior to pushing the “play button” on the video. )

  ElvisMovies 2  (2006)

   

  The original “ElvisMovies” (which is featured on the bottom of this blog entry)  now my second favored video on my YouTube page, with over 1400 hits since it was added on Dec. 26 of last year. It is only 3:59 minutes compared to the 10 minute “sequel”, of which you could consider it a “preview”.

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  I hereby present another one of my masterpieces. I’m really proud of this one, and sure hope everybody gets a chance to see it. If you are a fan of Elvis Presley, and who isn’t? You might really register with my latest MikeVideo Internet Movie, the sequel to “ElvisMovies”, long popular on the web. It’s the long form “ElvisMovies 2″, which I describe on my YouTube page for the video, “The sequel to, (or the main event compared to) “ElvisMovies” from 2003, this is a YouTube MAX movie exactly 10 minutes long. The song clips are longer, and there’s more of a natural flow to the “events” in “ElvisMovies 2″. This time I included my favorite Elvis production number, almost in it’s entirety, the stunning “Do the Clam”. There are 33 ElvisMovies, and there is one ElvisMovie. One commenter said: “wow…I wanna see the movie now!” This is it. It’s Terminator 2 compared to the Terminator. “ElvisMovies 2″. The one you’ve been waiting for.”

  It’s said that filmmaking genius Charlie Chaplin was never satisfied with his movies, and was editing them till his death. The best part of making a MikeVideo, for me, has always been the editing. I’ve always called the images I shoot in my camera “raw footage” and MikeVideos are always created and assembled more in the post production than in the shooting. This has been the case since 1986.
  The first MikeVideos were simply exercises in editing. I would take snippets of movies and television shows I’d taped on the VHS and re-record them on the Beta. This was a painstaking process, and once I had a certain ‘”segment” with which I was satisfied, putting something before it would cause more loss of image degradation as I taped to another machine. I had two Beta and two VHS machines at one time.
  In the computer, image editing is far simpler (if one doesn’t mind the countless program crashes even on a current machine), and segments can be moved around with ease, until the exact cut or fade is accomplished. Since I’ve had a computer for editing my DV images, most of my “internet movies” have been composed of my own photography.
  In 2002 I began creation on ElvisMovies, the first MikeVideo in a long while to be edited completely from movie footage, and the first to use completely digital image manipulation. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I had recorded films like Girl Happy, Live a Little, Love a Little, Tickle Me, and Speedway off the Tivo during the Turner Classic Movies Elvis retrospective, and I ran a line from the Tivo into the video in on the computer video card. Using either Windows Movie Maker or Videowave (I know it wasn’t Studio 9 because I can’t open the files in that program) I captured the segments I wanted from the Tivo into the computer. Then I began creation of “ElvisMovies”, a finished video with which I have never been satisfied from the moment I completed it.
  Making a movie in the computer is satisfying when one feels one is really creating, in the moment with the footage, trimming till just the right moment, letting moments hover, knowing when to cut and when to fade, or worse yet, use the digital transitions, which, like all tools, when used properly can appoach artistic intent. What artistic intent is there in a compliation of clips of old Elvis Presley Movies?
  I grew up in country music household, and Elvis was my mother’s musical God. His was the only rock and roll music I heard until the Beatles came along and rock exploded. In the late 50s it was easier for parents to “hide” the music from their kids.
  Elvis Presley is not only a cultural icon, he almost achieves a mythlike status. The 33 “non concert” films that Elvis made before 1970 are a video scrapbook of the King at the prime of his career, when, sadly, he chose to obey his manager’s wishes, the infamous Colonel Tom Parker, and be content to “be himself” on a series of films which eerily mirror the shenanigans of the Mephis Mafia themselves as they made the films.

  The original “ElvisMovies” was pretty much an experimentation, like a lot of my internet movies, to see what I could accomplish with the program. I never felt it was finished. I was just learning, basically, when I made it, and I had a very bad cross fade on the opening theme and the first scene of the video which plays very badly. Plus, I never overlaid any real credit sequence like I did on the Flash Animation.

  The idea behind ElvisMovies 2 is that I wanted to feature more of individual songs, specifically “The Clam” which I mysteriously left out of the first “ElvisMovies.” This was partially due to the fact that I used that song as the music to the Flash animation I created for the Cultural Blender Elvis page, on which ElvisMovies was originally a part, and on which it and it’s grander big brother will stay indeterminately.

  The Windows MovieMaker program is probably the best “free” video editing program I’ve worked with, but as soon as the movie goes over five or six minutes, and the effects are added, the program starts slowing, and crashes repeatedly. I find myself either getting disgusted, or keep opening up the program, do one or two trims or additions, save, work some more, save, open the program if it crashes, and just keep going. This does tend to take a while, but I can “feel” when a transition is working, and I am proud of my little MikeVideos. Since I started by editing exsiting film footage back “in the day” I especially feel a tinge of excitement when I think a “found footage” video is working.
  I didn’t want ElvisMovies 2 to be more than 10 minutes. That’s almost perfect for longterm video viewing on a computer. Five minutes is perfect, but this was to be like Terminator 2 is to the Terminator.

  One can almost never be satisfied with the results, hence, why creative types like Chaplin never thought they were ever “finished”. DVDs have afforded the common consumer the experience of seeing other cuts and alternate takes and endings of popular films. Mash Ups and re-edits of movies are popping up all over the internet. Is there ever going to be “definitive versions” of anything anymore?

  I want to preserve the spirit of the music, first of all, and then have fun with the premise that all 33 Elvismovies were one long film, with the same “character”, Elvis, and detailing his exploits. The musical numbers are always derided, and yet they carry an unmistakable stamp of authority and professionalism, if not art. I used mainly “snippets” in the first, but for ElvisMovies 2 I use a lot of the music and feature some great production numbers. Here are the movies from which I borrowed footage and music, and Elvis’ name in each film:

  It Happened at the World’s Fair 1963: Mike Edwards

  Girl Happy 1965: Rusty Wells

  Tickle Me 1965: Lonnie Beale/Panhandle Kid

  Speedway 1968: Steve Grayson

  Live a Little Love a Little 1968: Greg Nolan

  The first ElvisMovies is below. The latest is above.

  ElvisMovies (2003)

  As usual, with streaming video, it might be best if you’re viewing with a two year old or more computer that you hit play then pause, and wait for the light gray slider bar to advance about a quarter way before hitting play again or the movie might start and stop.

  I never thought of ElvisMovies as being “finished” even though it’s quite popular on the web. So now I  completed “ElvisMovies 2″ from inception to creation to presentation in just three days. It would have taken less than that if the computer program hadn’t crashed so often. This is 10 minutes of classic Elvis, culled and crashed together in true MikeVideo fashion. Somebody on YouTube commented about the earlier video: “wow…I wanna see the movie now! ” That made me realize the 4 minute “original” (above) is more like a preview because the music snippets are quite short. In the new “ElvisMovies 2″ as you could see, the songs are more complete, with full verses and choruses. This added a lot of length to the finished product, but I think Elvis fans will like it. I recently found the original video segments I recorded off the Tivo, so took a few days making the new “MikeVideo Internet Movie.”  Hope you liked it. And I hope that Elvis fans all over the net help to make this one of my more popular efforts. The Betty Boop video is the only one that gets more hits than the original ElvisMovies.

  Edit: 6:06 pm. pdt. Never one to skimp on links, I just uploaded the very first ElvisMovies AllThingsMike webpage and you can view it here, if you haven’t had enough Elvis for the evening.

  • 5:31 pm
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