#And Jack's Lament was the first video of Geoff's I had watched in so long (thank you to YouTube recommending it to me)

[acaplaya-musings]

(Man I hope Tumblr isn't compressing the quality of this too much) Time for another Geoff fanart! This one, obviously, is a sketch art I did of the thumbnail of Geoff's cover of Jack's Lament that he did for Halloween last year! This was actually the first Geoff art I did (ended up doing 5 total), as I was just so awestruck after watching the video that I was seized by an unbeatable urge to draw something for it. (And I enjoyed doing it so much that I wanted to do more, so I did).

[willows-adventures-in-words]

How it Started

So, TLDR (because this turned out longer than intended) I had no intention of writing fanfiction for VoicePlay but then I heard a reactor refer to Geoff as a dragon and that was the end of that.

Now for the details. I'll start at the beginning. Late last year I started listening to/watching their videos. The first video I watched was Enemy because YouTube suggested it to me. And I thought, sure I like Imagine Dragons. I watched a few of their videos and thought they were cool. Later in the year I really started watching some of their older videos. This year Youtube suggested I watch people react to VoicePlay and I thought, that could be fun to watch.

Well, I was right. It was fun. And technically gave me more VP content since I was running out of videos that I thought would be fun. (I mean I was wrong. There were other fun videos I hadn't seen at that point yet) Everything went downhill when I watched someone react to Geoff's cover of Jack's Lament from Nightmare Before Christmas (highly recommend) and called him a dragon.

So it's basically Mortius's fault.

Though I did find other people calling him that, that moment was the turning point. First I told myself NO. I will not write fanfiction for this. I'm not going to write fanfiction for a band. Not again. But then when I was at work, I started brainstorming ways to make an idea come to light and I knew it was over. I've resigned myself to that fate. I was going to write something. It was just a matter of what.

First, it was going to be medieval times-ish with Geoff being a dragon that can shapeshift into a human. Well, I dismissed the idea. Then I was stuck but the idea wouldn't leave. Geoff with dragon powers... Then the thought hit me. What if he got the ability somehow? I didn't know how yet but I'd concluded it would be a post-apocalyptic setting. And that's where it started. So, with the inspiration from the Seven Nation Army cover video, on March 9 I started writing.

(I still wasn't comfortable with the idea of writing VoicePlay fanfiction so I tweaked their names a little to make myself feel better)

But that's not the end yet. Because in my mind, post-apocalyptic means AFTER the apocalypse had already happened and it's some time later. Now at this point I'd already written two disconnected scenes. And then I realized that post-apocalyptic wouldn't work anymore. Because one of the scenes I wrote was Geoff's ability 'activating'. So I started a new brainstorming session to figure out how Geoff, and the others, got their abilities.

So, long story short, it was a government/military thing where they wanted to test some new thing they created. They did a few testings but wanted a bigger sample size and choose a city. The thing they tested sometimes gives people side effects like powers. The details are vague because I still have no idea on how to make HOW they tested it make a little bit of sense. I'm very slow with the whole writing thing.

And that is how I started writing VoicePlay Fanfiction. Because at this point I've started a side-project that is based on of the collabs they've done. No name changing. Legit fanfiction.

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals: Hellfire

As IF I was ever going to skip over this video!!!!

Voiceplay's cover of Hellfire was released on the 7th of October, 2023 (being their Halloween upload for the year), and, fun fact, it was the first Voiceplay video I watched after a sort of personal "hiatus" of 1-1.5 years, where they had somehow fallen off my radar for a while (which can happen when A, you weren't originally subscribed to them and mostly just relied on the Youtube algorithm/recommended section, and B, you previously only watched videos for songs you were already familiar with (I know better now though, obviously), plus a few other random factors). Geoff's cover of Jack's Lament was the first from his channel I had seen in quite a while (thank you YouTube algorithm for actually being helpful!), and I stumbled upon Hellfire the following day. And man what a video to bring me back into the fold!

Both video and arrangement were done Layne, and although this is another "guest feature" for J None (he did 5 full-length videos with Voiceplay in 2023!), he's only a backing vocalist for most of this one. Who took lead vocals? Geoff! Apparently Layne was wanting Voiceplay to do a cover of Hellfire for quite a while, and had always envisioned Geoff as the main singer for it, but Geoff, for a long time, said no. I don't know/can't remember what his exact reasoning was; whether he just thought the song was too dark or he thought he wouldn't be able to do it justice, but obviously Layne eventually managed to persuade him (made him an arrangement he couldn't refuse, I'm guessing, because seriously this arrangement is STUNNING), and quite frankly I am forever in Layne's debt for it!

I have no estimate of how long this post might be or how much I'll actually have to say about the screencaps I share, but I'll try to make this worthwhile, and so without further ado, let's get into this!

Pretty "basic"/"simple" visuals here, but honestly that's all that's needed for this one! For one thing, the vocals/arrangement are amazing enough to shine on their own (kinda like with Nothing Else Matters), and for another thing, this may be a Disney villain song, but at the same time it's not really a "Disney Song", y'know? This ain't Friends On The Other Side, or Poor Unfortunate Souls, or Be Prepared; this is a song about deep internal conflict, "burning desire", and attempts to suppress said burning desire, which only leads to more trouble. This is a villain song taken completely seriously, and boy oh boy do Voiceplay nail it!

(I feel like I should also mention that I've never actually watched The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, but I know the characters, I know the story, and this song speaks for itself tbh.)

I mean of course all the guys understood the assignment for this one but Cesar really Understood👏The👏Assignment!👏

I can't believe I'm having one of my "hang on a minute-" moments on freaking Hellfire of all videos, but somehow I never noticed the purple gemstone ring that Eli is wearing here before now! (And Cesar is wearing a red gemstone ring as well, which I only just spotted in a previous shot).

Yep, Layne's got a gemstone ring on as well!

I'm guessing J has got a matching ring as well, but I'm fairly certain Geoff doesn't, because he's got this gemstone necklace instead, which of course helps to further identify him as the lead vocalist/"main character" in this one.

(And even though Voiceplay seem to wear black/dark colours a fair bit (and Geoff does a lot), I still really freaking love the costuming in this video. They all look so good!!!!!)

Yep, there it is! J has a ring as well!

"BURN IT"

((If you've been reading/paying attention to all my Voiceplay Visuals posts, you might have picked up that usually, Geoff is the only one who gets bold font for quotes, but I'm more than willing to make an exception this time, because goddamn))

"This fire in my skin"

The way he looks down at his hands and arms as if feeling himself changing, as if there really are flames coursing right underneath the surface of the skin!!!!

"This burning desire, is turning me to s i n"

Not here to make fun or tease this time, certainly not! Geoff did a fantastic acting job in this one, and his delivery of every single vocal line was just absolutely *chefs kiss*

Everyone else was brilliant in this too, and Cesar absolutely had some attention-grabbing moments of his own! 😄

The "it's not my fault!" section of the song is really cleverly done here imo. (it's technically visual as well! I can talk about it!) It gives other members a bit more of a chance to shine, in a song which (aside from the Latin chanting in the background) is only meant to be a one-man performance. And the video (arrangement included) does this by turning Layne, J, Eli, and Cesar into a sort of Greek Chorus, or more specifically, a "singing chorus" (yes, that's a real thing, which I learned about when I was double-checking to see if I actually remembered the correct meaning of Greek Chorus). Singing choruses are sometimes incorporated into musical theatre and grand opera, and are "used frequently to interpret the mental and emotional reactions of the principal characters, after the manner of a Greek chorus." And while Eli and Cesar are taking over the lead for this bit here, Geoff becomes a little bit more subdued, head slightly bowed, just doing some little self-conducting hand movements as he holds down the bassline (I'm assuming, though I can't really hear him at all in the background until his arpeggios(?) when J takes over (look, sometimes you really can't fully describe/talk about what's happening on screen without talking about the audio that goes with it!!!))

Cesar with the sick air guitar! (Not all reactors seemingly noticed this moment, which is a damn crime tbh (you can actually see him doing it in the group shot just a few seconds before this too, though that part I myself didn't pick up on till just now))

I can't remember seeing a single reaction video (out of the ones I've watched at least) that actually figured out who the Guard was, even though it's in the description of the video! (Though I guess those who were watching from Patreon have more of an excuse). It's Tony! (Also, this means that this video featured 4 "generations" of Voiceplay baritones - Layne, Tony, J, and Cesar!)

I've heard one or two reactors say they wish they could have seen the guard's face, but nah, I don't think it's necessary. He's there to provide Relevant Information for progression of the plot/song/scene, and that's it! His identity is irrelevant!

(But still, shoutout to Tony!)

"what" (hhhhhh)

"I'll find her,"

"I'll find her and I'll find her if I have to burn down all of PARIS!"

(He did so well! <3 <3 <3)

At first when I watched this video I was like "wow I really love this video, but should I like this video so much? Considering the context/meaning behind the song and all that?" That lasted for like maybe a week maximum. I adore this cover and this video and I make no apologies about it!)

*swoon*

Very cool flame effect in the eyes! According to one reaction video I watched, that likely was not easy to do, but it's a great addition to the already-very-awesome video!

The zoom-out on Geoff is done brilliantly for dramatic effect here as well!

Do I even need to say it at this point? 😂😅

Well anyway, obligatory "he's so pretty!" comment

(Here's a slight shot of Cesar's ring btw)

Man I love it when he belts <3

Firstly, the absolute power and feeling that Geoff put into this, like it's absolutely amazing to watch and it delights me to no end. Secondly, I wasn't going to include that third pic above, but turns out Geoff is wearing a gemstone ring as well! (maybe more than one?) I knew he was wearing rings in the video, but I just assumed they were his wedding/engagement rings, as he pretty much always wears them in videos (unless he can't for costuming purposes), one on each hand, but now I wonder if he was in fact wearing them at all in this video?

Excuse me while I just- *muffled yelling into pillow*

As I type this, Voiceplay's cover of Hellfire is just 4,700 views away from reaching one million hits on YouTube! I hope it gets there, it certainly deserves it (and more!). (UPDATE: As of the morning of the 20th of February (AEST timezone), it's now at one million views! Can I hear a wahoo!?!) (SECOND UPDATE: and it's now at over 1.1 million, as of the 25th of March!)

It's not exactly a typical Halloween-type video for Voiceplay, no super-elaborate character costumes or coloured face/body paint, but just like practically everything Voiceplay did in 2023, this was EPIC!

But anyway, I'll be skipping over Whiskey In The Jar, and I'm not doing any posts about Christmas videos (for now), which means that I'm finally onto the first two full-length uploads of 2024! (And I really would have expected there to be a third 2024 upload by this point, but it seems we're just gonna have to keep on waiting.) Stay tuned!

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals: Unshaken

Geoff's cover of the song Unshaken from the videogame Red Dead Redemption 2 was uploaded on the 10th of March, 2024, i.e. a month ago for you reading this. I wasn't quite sure at first if I was going to make a Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals post for this video or not, but I waited a couple-ish days (it released on a Sunday morning, and I'm currently typing this on the following Tuesday night), had a think about it (and watched it about half a dozen times, 5 of those just in its first day of release), and decided "yeah, I can talk about this!"

So let's get into this!

Ho boy, that's one hell of an opening shot (and yes I know I said the same thing about Jack's Lament), and we linger on it for like 5 seconds as well!

(Howdy there, Daryl!)

Original thumbnail/Spotify image alert! (And this was the image Geoff posted a week earlier on his Community tab as a little sneak peek, like he really gave nothing else away ahead of time)

For a red hot second (hah) when I first watched this video I thought there was gonna be a red tint to the visuals the whole time, but thankfully no

Did you notice how the screen expands at the same time as the lighting changes? Very neat!

Also interesting that the lighting on Goff, Daryl, Jeoph, and Jeff (more on them in a minute) is not just plain white or yellow; it's almost definitely green. The red lighting has not disappeared, as you can tell from the background, but it gets (mostly) cancelled out in the foreground by the green lighting, because red and green are of course complementary (opposite) colours. But also, red can be associated with danger and warnings (and it's in the title of the videogame of course), and green can sometimes be a "spooky"/"eerie" colour, particularly the bright neon kind. Things to think about!

(And of course, the credit for lighting automation goes to none other than Eli. Thanks Eli! (though I assume Geoff had a fair hand in coming up with ideas for lighting design as well).

If you're reading this, you almost definitely know that this video is technically a prequel to Geoff's video for Ghost Riders In The Sky - here, we see Goff, Daryl, Jeoph, and Jeff as living human cowboys, before they became ghost cowboys. I made a side-by-side comparison post not long after this video dropped, which you can find here

I am of course, quite pleased to see the return of the "Geoffettes", and if you've been following my Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals posts (the last of which was written at least a few weeks before this), you'll know I was keenly anticipating their next feature in a Geoff video. What I wasn't expecting, however, was to have a video that was in fact, just them! Jeff, Jeoph, Goff, and Daryl, but no Geoff! A bold move, to let them do a video all by themselves, but hey, I'm not complaining! 😁😉

Jeoph takes lead vocals for most of this one (technically a primarily-visual observation, for obvious reasons), which is interesting, as he was the only one of the four "brothers" in Ghost Riders to get a proper solo part (the "cowboy change your ways today" line). I wonder if the connection is deliberate/intentional?

(Also Jeoph's got charm, I'll give him that)

I'm assuming that is in fact the same coat that Daryl wore in Ghost Riders In The Sky, since all the other costume pieces match up, but because of the lighting, it looks like a different colour. In Ghost Riders, it seems to have a bit more of a reddish tinge to it, but with the green lighting here, it looks more like a regular brown.

Also because I didn't mention it in my Ghost Riders post, I'll mention it here instead: Thanks to the leather coat (and a bit of extra clothing layering underneath I believe), Daryl looks like he's got a bit of extra "heft" (weight/muscle) on him compared to the other three riders, as pointed out by someone in the comments section of the Ghost Riders video

Oh yeah and there's this golden light backdrop as well, which is quite nice, and I feel like there's some sort of meaning/intention behind this as well, but I haven't quite figured it out yet, rip

Also if Daryl's the largest of the group, at least by a small margin, then I'm saying that Jeff is the thinnest, at least a little bit.

Back to the harsh red lighting for the chorus!

Oh yeah and then we get more of a cool green lighting backdrop for the second chorus - sorta fitting for the lyrics about the whispering pines.

Also I just realized I haven't yet said a word about the set design, which is honestly criminal of me because it is on point. All the props are so cool, like the lanterns and the horse saddle on the far left side, and it definitely nails the Old West theme!

(This was of course filmed at Pattycake Productions Studios, so shoutout to them for their help/collaboration!)

(This shot is more representative of how Daryl's coat appears in the Ghost Riders video in reagards to colour)

Interestingly, Goff doesn't get any solo/lead parts in this one, and also I can't figure out whether he's left-handed in this video too or not. He's holding a large gun (rifle? musket? idk I'm Australian) in his right hand, but I can't see a gun holster on his right hip, so I'm assuming he has a holster on his left hip like in Ghost Riders (and I know Jeff kept his underarm holster in this video)

If I may step "out-of-universe" and talk reality for a hot second, I love the fact that even when Geoff is portraying 4 different cowboy characters, the rings stay on the whole time, for every single one, and so does The Necklace (you can only see part of the necklace chain in shots of Jeff, Jeoph, and Goff here though). Like truly, his jewelry (all of which is a symbol/representation of his love for his wife <3 ) only comes off in the most exceptional of circumstances (like having your hands and chest spray-painted to turn you into a skeleton, for example)

On a completely different Doylian note, how the frick does Geoff Castellucci's hair work? Watch this video, and look at the colour/shade of his hair. Then go watch Wicked Game, the video released just last month, and do the same. And as a bonus, go watch Sleeping In The Cold Below. Seriously, is lighting more powerful/influential than I thought, or does he use colouring products sometimes? I swear I'm gonna be talking about this in many posts to come this year, lol rip.

Jeff is my favourite in this video, though I can't help but love them all 😁

And peep the underarm gun holster I mentioned!

Handsome pretty boy <3

Also love the fact that since Jeff's shirt didn't have any buttons on it to leave undone, he left a button undone on his vest instead (Geoff and his "Clones" are nothing if not consistent 😆)

Lighting change!

"Will the hunter be hunted by the smoking gun?"

Jeoph removes his hat, which in a lot of media is often associated with acknowledgement of death, and the way he holds/looks at his gun here makes me think that Cowboy Jeoph has in fact killed somebody (in this essay I will...)

(Also Matthew "Bucky" Buckner is credited as "special consultant" for this video. Did he help out with the use of the gun props or something? (they are just props, right?))

"Amidst the crash of the-"

Love the sudden light flash to match with the sudden line pause, like a flash of lightning, and it kinda sounded like there was a subtle thunderclap there too!

You know I love a good passionate belt from Geoff (or one of the Geoffettes) in a video 😄💜

It's quite different tone-wise, but this bit reminds me of Geoff's Shenandoah video, with two of the Geoff clones seemingly conducting with each other at one point. Go rewatch that video after this, you'll see what I mean.

Also either it's just me, or for most of this, the self-conducting hand movements are kept quite minimal/subtle, only increasing moreso here at the big climax of the song/video. I'm gonna have to watch this video a few more times to confirm, but it adds to the more sombre vibe of the video imo (like obviously we know how the story ends for the four of them here, and it's not exactly a happy ending)

Go off Jeoph!

I also wish to know if there's any particular meaning/significance behind Jeff taking off his hat early on in the video and then putting it back on at the end (other than the thought that only just came to me right now, in that it's very similar to Jeff in Folsom Prison Blues, removing his glasses early on in the video, and then putting them back on at the end.)

Honestly love this final shot, it's very cool 👌

There is one thing missing though: the gramophone logo at the end! It's not there! The video just goes straight to the Patrons list! It's not even at the very very end! Did Geoff just forget? Is it some subtle symbolism connected to how "Main Geoff" isn't in this video? I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether or not it shows up at the end of the next one!

And here I was wondering whether or not I'd have a lot to say about this video or a lot of screenshots to take! Guess I had no need to worry after all! Geoff once again knocked it out the park, and yes, as I said at the start, I watched this 5 times in one day! The arrangement is very impressive, as we've come to expect from Geoff, and though I predicted this would be a Low Bass Cover the moment I realized this would be a Western-style song/video, this was still ridiculously low. Geoff pulled out all the stops for this one, and I love it!