Linking VLC build to ffmpeg build libraries - c++

Question

I'm receiving the following error message when attempting to build VLC:
checking for mad_bit_init in -lmad... yes
checking for MPG123... yes
checking for libavutil variant... libav
checking for GST_APP... yes
checking for GST_VIDEO... yes
checking for AVCODEC... no
configure: error: Requested 'libavcodec >= 57.16.0' but version of libavcodec is 56.1.0. Pass --disable-avcodec to ignore this error.
I am running the command (first step of Configuration from link below, I did the contrib method and built everything else as well):
./configure
So let's get the obvious out of the way: I'm missing the most recent version of libavcodec (v57). Using --disable-avcodec is not a viable solution. Doing a quick apt-file search libavcodec I'm seeing that for debian/jessie the latest version published is libavcodec56, not 57. I did also notice that libavcodec57 was available for installation with ffmpeg here https://ffmpeg.org/download.html
I actually needed to also build ffmpeg from source. So I did that, worked my way through the dependencies without too much trouble using the guide linked to below.
So here is my issue: After building and doing a make install of ffmpeg, I still get that error above, despite having the latest libavcodec freshly compiled.
So my question is: since I used that guide, I am still getting the error when building vlc. I see that the lib exists her: /root/ffmpeg_build/lib/libavcodec.a, and I figured make install would put it where it needs to be. Is there some other compile flag I can set while compiling vlc to point it to that lib directory to look for libavcodec?
ffmpeg build: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide/Ubuntu
vlc build: https://wiki.videolan.org/UnixCompile/
UPDATE: tried this, still getting the error message: PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/root/ffmpeg_build/lib:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH" LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/root/ffmpeg_build/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" ./configure
UPDATE2: tried this, still getting the error message: ./configure --libdir="/root/ffmpeg_build/lib:$LIBDIR"
UPDATE3: I tried merging my ffmpeg libs into my vlc libs and may have made things worse. My ffmpeg libs lived here: /root/ffmpeg_build/lib
My vlc build (contrib builds as well) lived here: /opt/vlc/
So I merged them with my existing vlc contrib lib:
cp /root/ffmpeg_build/lib/* /opt/vlc/contrib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lib/
cp /root/ffmpeg_build/lib/pkgconfig/* /opt/vlc/contrib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lib/pkgconfig/
Then ran configure:
./configure --with-contrib=contrib/x86_64-linux-gnu
Which finally worked, but now I get this error when I try to make:
Now I get the error:
/usr/bin/ld: /opt/vlc/contrib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lib/libavformat.a(allformats.o): relocation R_X86_64_32 against `ff_a64_muxer' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC