Monday, July 23, 2007 – Elvis Right Here!

What would you make of this parked on the corner under your window?

It's all explained at "Honk if You ♥ Elvis" – that would be a blog about a documentary about a road trip –

This August 16th, 2007 is the 30th anniversary of the passing of Elvis Presley and we started this here blog in honor of our documentary in honor of him... but it's hard to see the King in all his glory from a computer screen so we're hitting the open road.

On August 2nd we're taking off from Los Angeles and cruising in a mobile Elvis shrine (a 1972 Cadillac De Ville, to be exact) on a cross country search for the fans in that wide open space that is the USA. Our destination? Graceland, of course, in Memphis, Tennessee, to capture the festivities of Elvis Week. We're stopping along the way to celebrate ours and other's devotion to America's first icon, phenomenon, sex symbol, rock star, cultural obsession, national past time and everything else that the King is and was to us all.

All this in mind... we're shooting everything during our three week adventure on digital and 16mm then cutting it into a feature documentary.

There's more at http://www.honkifyouheartelvis.com/ of course.  The Cadillac was in the shop, being painted, pink of course.

Watch for the documentary – I may be in it – the documentary by my neighbors –

Erica Easley (left) - Direction/Production Gal

The author of Rock Tease: The Golden Age of Rock T-Shirts, (Abrams Image, 2006) and a speaker at the Experience Music Project's Pop Conference 2007, Erica is a writer living in West Hollywood. A junk collector, fashion anthropologist and Columbia grad, Erica’s first favorite record at the age of three was an Elvis Presley compilation. She still has the record and is sorry we can’t get one of those fancy old Cadillacs with a turntable in back to take on this very special adventure.

Helen Harlan (right) - Direction/Production Wonder

A production assistant, aspiring writer and proud UCLA grad living in the same apartment building as Erica Easley, Helen has worked on dozens of national commercials and feature films, including NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and others for which she sorely did not receive credit. A regular contributor and actor on weaknights.com, a comedy blog, Helen has never been on a full on road trip and is both scared and excited at the same time.

Somehow that reminded me of this pinball machine that used to sit in front of a souvenir store on Hollywood Boulevard.

Saturday, July 28 – the Cadillac for the road trip to Elvis' Graceland has now been painted. It's very pink.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik