*Elvis On Tour Reviews |Part #2|: After his experience with Cocker, Abel expressed his disinterest, but Adidge convinced him to travel to Las Vegas to see Presley in concert. After the show, the two met the singer backstage. Presley convinced the still reluctant filmmakers to take on the project. The directors told Presley that they did not like Elvis: That's the Way It Is, as they felt he was acting for the cameras. They warned Presley they would only work on the project if he acted naturally; Presley agreed he would. Adidge and Parker visited the tour locations while Abel made arrangements for the equipment and crew. The directors planned to use small, unobtrusive cameras. They would edit the footage later to increase the image resolution to that of a 70 mm film. Upon meeting Presley, Pierre and Abel felt he was too bloated and pale. They worked with the lighting to hide Presley's appearance. The team had eleven Eclair cameras equipped with eleven-minute film rolls. To avoid loss of continuity, the cameras were cued to a tape deck that collected the video and sound from all the sources. In March 1972, Presley traveled to Los Angeles for rehearsal filming on March 30. For the sessions at RCA Records's Hollywood studio, Presley sang the numbers he prepared for the tour and performed Gospel jam sessions with the musicians. Abel attended the start of Presley's tour in Buffalo, New York, on April 5, 1972. He taped the concert with a simple camera to study Presley's performance later. The Associated Press reported the show broke the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium's attendance record for concerts with a crowd of 17,360. The crew began shooting the documentary at Presley's appearance at Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Daily Press reported the show on April 9 at the Hampton Coliseum, had a sold-out crowd of 22,000. There were traffic jams on Interstate 64 an hour before the show. The newspaper described the audience welcoming Presley with "deafening applause and screams". It remarked that the singer was "a little chubbier than he used to be" but that "the electricity" of his performance was as "magnetic as ever". The crew filmed Presley's performance the following night in Richmond. After the Richmond show, Abel returned to California to review the film and work out the structure of the documentary. He joined the team for Presley's performance in Greensboro, North Carolina, and showed Parker the footage they had at a local theater. Presley's manager reacted positively. Aididge's crew shot Presley behind the scenes in Jacksonville, Florida, where they captured what would become the documentary's final scene. The crew recorded a fourth concert at Presley's show in San Antonio, Texas. The San Antonio Express estimated 10,500 concertgoers attended the show, and reviewer Bill Graham noted the audience was "deafening" when Presley came on stage. The piece stated that Presley's "sound hadn't changed" and that he "was at his best, if not better than ever in his entertainment career". The reviewer noted there were more males in the crowd compared to the 1950s and that the audience "had matured". Graham commented the younger fans "seemed to sit and cheer in awe", and though "there wasn't a mad rush for the stage", Presley "made his now famous rush for the waiting car". After two full weeks of shooting, the production team finished the photography. The team told the Copley News Service they shot 60 hours of footage. Through Presley's friend, Jerry Schilling, the directors convinced the singer to use footage of his early career that included his appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. A fan club in England provided additional early footage. Parker opposed references to Presley's early career, as he felt it would portray the singer as a "nostalgia act". Schilling convinced Presley to allow the filmmakers to interview him at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. The interview provided the film's narrative, as the voice clips were used between performance sequences as the tour progressed. Presley's father, Vernon, was interviewed at Graceland. The release of a companion live album was canceled after an overcurrent damaged the recording equipment on the fourth night of the tour. The costs of shooting the film amounted to $600,000 (equivalent to $4,370,400 in 2023). With Presley's performance fee, the total production cost $1.6 million (equivalent to $11,654,400 in 2023). Parker asked MGM to remove parts of Presley's interview from the film, including the singer's negative comments about his acting career. Some of his comments were ultimately included in the final cut with a compilation film clip of Presley's on-screen kisses that reflected the repetitive plot of his films. Ken Zemke was the documentary's primary editor, while Martin Scorsese edited the film's montage. As in Woodstock, Scorsese used split screens to focus on the performer, as well as on individual band members.

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