Love Me Tender

Elvis Presley, Performed by Brian the Amateur

This is perhaps the worst video I have ever edited in my life. No seriously, even while I was just making powerpoint videos in middle school, it was a lot better than this.

The thing is, this was the best looking “minimalist” place in my entire home, so I shot this video, plus La Vie En Rose on this very sofa. (Chronologically, this was shot later than La Vie En Rose). The sofa would’ve been fine if it is just one guy sitting on it; but this time is different. Since there are two supporting vocal roles in the background, I have to fit another two of “me’s” into the frame as well. When I was shooting, I forgot to account the softness of the cushions on the sofa.

What that means, is that whenever the guy in the front sits, he takes the height of the cushions and the back cushions with him. The thing is, when shooting the other supporting roles, the height of the sofa is naturally going to be taller, because no one is sitting on it. This created a huge problem while editing. Normally, all I have to do is to trim the supporting roles onto the main frame, perhaps editing the lighting, and call it a day. This time it’s different because if I simply trimmed the video, it would immediately show the sofa’s height difference and it would look really bad.

I shot the video in August, and in Southern California, it was a riling 47ºC, so about 116ºF. I already have to crank up the AC since the very beginning of the morning so the heat doesn’t penetrate my house and make it unbearable to shoot later in noon, when the light was perfect, and won’t move too much for the next 2-3 hours so the shadows of the different “me’s” would remain the same. I just don’t want to go through that again, the heat is brutal.

That’s why I decided to keep on editing the video, by using the “mask” tool in FCPX, to cut the supporting roles, frame by frame, and paste it onto the main guy being videotaped. Apple’s mask tool is rather brilliant. It really would’ve helped in a lot more situations. This situation, it did help, but look at the picture! I have to create tens of hundreds of dots around the edges of the supporting roles. if there is only one, like in both The Wind and The Wind (Classical Guitar), then it would be fine, a little hassle is a little hassle, and there were little movements back then because the support’s hands are always on the instrument. This time it’s different, since it is a more “a cappella” approach, the hands are waving around!

I did edit it enthusiastically at the very beginning, for the first week after I shot the video in August. I edited and edited, and it seemed all like fun. Later, I realized that I have to start studying for LSAT. It just got super busy, so I had to put this project asleep in the corner of my folder.

When I opened it up a few days ago in October, I realized the abomination I have left myself. I just don’t have the energy to do this frame by frame kind of set up anymore! That’s why, I basically left the bottom end of the video not so polished, compared to the beginning. Heck, at one point in the end, I even used a visual effect to cover up a spot that was too horrible to fix!

To lessen my burden, I cut one verse out of the total four verses.

In the end, this video is more like a “I’m still here, don’t unsubscribe, don’t unfollow” kinda video release, since it really has been two months since I last posted a video of some sort.

Music

(Listen at the bottom of the page)

One time I had Spotify on random shuffling, it gave me this song. It was so easy, but so peaceful; that’s why I saved it to my playlist. One time I was driving home, like 2 miles away, this song started playing. Then I noticed: “Hey! This song really is easy to play!” And easy to sing, by that matter of fact.

When I got home, I started searching for this song’s tabs, and it really is super easy. That’s how I recorded it on the first night I practiced. I added a fourth verse on my cover, it reads as:

Love me tender, love me well

Let me in your dreams

You are everything I have

And will always be

I also changed the “fulfill” to “fulfilled”, because it Elvis’s version didn’t make sense to me gramatically, not saying that I speak better English than him, of course I don’t, but it just doesn’t sound right to me, and adding the past tense really helped.

Then I just started to let it sit for a while, while I was working on the final touches of my first piano song, “Heaven to Earth”, click to read more. When I finished recording “Someone You Loved” with Chang, I opened it back up, and nothing needed fixing. It was good to go.

Since this is such a simple song, I don’t plan on paying $12 a year to have it on Spotify. Soundcloud is good enough.