#Voiceplay visuals addendums

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Voiceplay Visuals - addendums and interesting BTS stuff (part 3/3)

You can go find part 1 here, and part 2 here.

Well, at least when I get around to doing VoicePlay Visuals posts for some of the Christmas videos (which will be sooner than you think - I have Plans), I will already have BTS knowledge ready to share, no addendums needed!

Part 3 below the cut!

Seven Nation Army: "No clue where this was filmed (the description doesn't say), I'm guessing an old abandoned shopping mall or something?" - Well the escalator (or whatever Americans call it) was a bit of a giveaway, but yes, that's exactly right. Also the guys may or may not have been trespassing, oop- 😅

"One thing I do know about the filming of this is that Voiceplay had to use duct tape to cover up/censor some of the graffiti" - Correct, but what you might not know is that there was some graffiti on the floor as well, covered up by specific placements of rubble and chunks of concrete.

In The Air Tonight: "Also the car belongs to Layne's dad, and likely would have been sitting in the garage since the early days of 4:2:Five, at least." - To be specific, Layne's dad has owned the car since 1972. - Geoff in the BTS video: "It's a 52-year-old car, which is a year or two younger than I am." 😂 (The car is 8 years older in actuality, but he does love to joke)

"Geoff is, once again, the only bare-shouldered/sleeveless one of the group!" - We can thank Kathy for that! - Geoff in the BTS (to Kathy): "What you doing there?" Kathy: "Cutting your sleeves off!" Geoff: "Who are you doing that for? Is that for me or for you?" Kathy: "It's for the world." 😆 (she knows what the people want!)

"I believe I read a comment somewhere saying this was filmed outside PattyCake Productions or something, like outdoors? And apparently it was a bit warm outside" - Correction: It was VERY warm! When they started setting up (yes, outside Pattycake Studios) at 6PM, it was apparently 88 degrees Fahrenheit! (Which is roughly 31 degrees Celsius). And it was pretty humid too, but hey, Geoff's hair looked great! 😁 - Also fun fact: Geoff's denim vest was bunched up a little bit at the back and held in place with a clothes peg! So it wasn't too loose on him, I guess? - And finally, they didn't wrap filming until 1AM, and then 7 hours later they were all back at PattyCake to film Minis! Insane!

Creep: "Apparently what this means is that Eli was explaining his video concept to Geoff and Kathy via videocall, and they (I'm not sure/can't remember which one first had the idea) suggested the usage of a mirror" - Maybe the idea was originally suggested via videocall, idk, but in the BTS video is footage of a basic concept video thing that Geoff sent to Eli. So like he had Kathy sitting in front of a mirror in the office at home, and he was moving the camera around and explaining his idea. Neat! - The super-smooth transition that I commented on? The BTS video had a wide-shot clip showing exactly how it was done!

Sleeping In The Cold Below: "Geoff's hair looks greyer than usual here, and I can't for the life of me figure out whether it was coloured grey for the video, or if it's just the lighting, or if this is more of his natural colour nowadays." - It's still mostly brown, it's just the lighting in this one that makes it look lighter (however the white-grey streak is getting even whiter, and it's spreading to the other half of his bangs as well! (kinda love to see it ngl))

"Cesar is wearing two different coloured contact lenses, because apparently he (and Omar too) couldn't decide which colour to go with (valid), and in fact Cesar and Omar are wearing one each of two pairs! (So basically their contact lenses match up)" - So what actually happened is that Omar was looking through the lenses they had available and was like "purple is my favourite colour but I really like these blue ones", and Franchezca (production assistant) was like "you should wear one of each!" and Omar was like "hey Cesar you wanna do one of both with me?"

"Eli's wearing two different coloured contacts as well!" - Actually I'm not so sure now, it might've just been the lighting making them look different. - Also the filming venue (OptiView360) looks freaking awesome, like absolutely insanely rad, what a vibe. - Also I didn't mention this in the original post but I might as well mention it here: A lot of shots had to be refilmed because Layne wasn't wearing his fingerless gloves. However, there are still some shots in the video where Layne's hands are suddenly bare - 6 in total actually. The most obvious is when Omar first starts singing, while 3 of the shots are blink-and-you-miss-it where you really have to be keeping your eyes peeled for it.

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3

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Voiceplay Visuals - addendums and interesting BTS stuff (part 2/3)

I explained everything in the first part, go find it here. Let's keep going!

(Part 2 below the cut)

We Don't Talk About Bruno: "Also I'm pretty sure I heard from someone that Geoff's "ruana" is in fact just a regular blanket/piece of fabric draped (possibly secured/pinned) over his shoulders" - Yeah pretty much, except specifically it was tied behind his back/over his shoulders - You wanna know how Cesar just seemingly pulled that umbrella out of nowhere? Well it was hidden behind him! Or more perhaps more precisely, his behind hid it! 😂 (His glutes definitely got a workout that day!)

"(Oh and this section really was slowed down in post-production in order to make the petals (and hair flips!) look nice, and so both Ashley and Geoff were having to sing/lip-sync to sped up versions of their vocal lines!)" - Tis true! That whole section was done in basically double speed during filming, and slowed-down in post (the reverse of what Geoff did for his Monster Mash video actually), which makes the resulting footage extra impressive tbh - Also I didn't specify in my original post, but Geoff isn't just wearing the floral blouse - he's wearing the same pink shorts as Ashley as well! 😂 - Bonus fun fact: the little rat on Geoff's shoulder was remote-controlled!

Dream On: "(Also this was filmed in some old school I believe? I think maybe Cesar's old school or something?)" - Right on the first count, wrong on the second - this was Eli's former high school! (Very much no longer in use as a school though, obviously) - It was filmed in Leesburg, which is an hour away from Orlando apparently, and since there was obviously no decent part of the building to be used as a breakroom or dressing room or whatever, they brought a production coach, the same one that got used for the same purpose for the Panic Medley filming in fact! - The shirt/top that Geoff wore in the video was quite tight-fitting apparently, and he needed additional assistance from Kathy to get it fully pulled down (she helped while still filming) - Still not entirely sure what Layne is wearing on top of his shirt, but it seems to be just draped over his shoulders, idk

Running Up That Hill: - They put a lot of effort into recreating That Scene from Stranger Things, like they had pieces of paper with shots from the TV series and annotations written on it and everything! - The jacket that Geoff had tied around his waist in the video is like some black bomber jacket/letterman-style thing, and he was wearing it sometimes in between takes and ngl he looks good in it, like I almost kinda wish he had been properly wearing it in the video.

"Based on the very-fixed and very-specific shots we get of Ashley while she's "levitating", I'm guessing this was more done via clever editing and post-production work rather than anything like harnesses to actually lift her in the air" - Well, while it is true that editing trickery was favoured over harnesses, there was actually a bit more practicality involved than what I guessed/imagined. Idk how much I should reveal, but let's just say that Ashley had to use some muscles for it!

Hide And Seek (Ding Dong!): "I love the ghostly visual effects on Lauren, with the glowy ethereal outline of her silhouette, and the slight translucence on her dress!" - The effect also helps conceal the fact that she wasn't in the studio with them at all! Magic of greenscreen, just like with VoicePlay's Enemy video! In fact, Layne took a very quick flight to Nashville, Tennessee to help Lauren record her parts, before quickly flying back to Orlando, Florida (in time to beat an oncoming hurricane!)

"I have a feeling that the lighting on [Layne] is such that it makes him look like an actual Haunted Mansion/Disney Parks ride animatronic (especially when combined with deliberate movement/acting choices in the video)" - I mean yeah, maybe, but also tbh it's also just the whole makeup/costume itself - even in the BTS footage he didn't look fully "human"/"real" when in the full costume. - Fun fact: Layne also had black food colouring in his mouth to further add to the whole look! Wild!

"Absolutely loving Cesar's makeup in this one ngl (I wonder whether he coloured his face and/or hair blue for filming this or if that was just all done via editing?)" - That was all thanks to Rick Underwood! His hair and face really were that blue! (Not all his hair though, just the front section of it). - I still have questions about Geoff's makeup though - didn't get to see much of the process in the BTS video, rip. - The floating crystal ball was a practical effect, done with fishing wire and a pulley system controlled by Tony!

Golden Hour: - So the greenscreening of the heads was done a little differently to how I imagined, and Geoff's hair did in fact look just like that during the filming - it's not just the editing - This is actually the second version of the video that was created - Patrons were initially presented with a different video (which I haven't actually watched but heard about in the BTS) with a slightly different setting and alterations to the story (Layne came up with a few different ideas in fact). - Also I may be slightly colourblind, because I thought that vest was maroon, but it's actually just brown, lol rip.

Valhalla Calling: "check out the set! I like the shields in the background." - Everything other than the benches and props in the foreground was completely digital! They filmed in front of huge digital screens (and I mean HUGE) that had the pre-designed backgrounds displayed on them! - Y'know how all the guys were wearing furs and heavy layers of clothing and all that? Yeah well apparently on the day of filming, the air conditioning at Vu Studios was busted, RIP (Rick Underwood had to help blot away some of their sweat between takes!)

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3

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VoicePlay Visuals - what I got wrong (and other cool BTS stuff) (part 1/3)

So for those of you who still are unaware, I'm currently a member of VoicePlay's Patreon (and Geoff's too) (just for a few months), and I've been having an absolutely great time so far, especially in now having access to Behind-The-Scenes (BTS) content of each of VoicePlay's videos!

However, as I was whizzing through the BTS stuff, I was thinking about my VoicePlay Visuals posts, and about some things I said that weren't entirely true - whether I said something I believed to be correct that wasn't, or whether I simply made a wrong guess. I wanted to share my newfound knowledge with all of you (which is fine btw, people share this sorta stuff in the comments section of reaction videos all the time), but I didn't want to go back and edit a bunch of posts or reblog a bunch of them to add addendums, so I thought I'd do a sort of "addendum compilation" instead! (In three parts, just to keep these not too long). I'll also share some stuff where my guess was right, and additional interesting things I didn't originally know/notice. And you don't have to read a bunch of my previous VoicePlay Visuals posts before reading this (and I won't be mentioning every single post/video anyway), but if you wanna find the original posts I refer to, they're linked in each title.

Part 1 below the cut!

This Is Halloween: "I don't really have anything to say about J's full transformation, but it would be unfair of me to not include him as well, and it's definitely a very impressive costume. Almost like one of those rubbery fully-covering-the-head costume mask things, but like it's his actual face?" - I was pretty close! For the "full Wolfman" look, J was wearing a special prostethic face/mask thing, specially sculpted to fit his face, with just his mouth/chin area left uncovered! - Additionally, Eli's fake chin prostethic thing actually also goes up and over his cheeks, making them look puffier and making them look puffier and "blending" it all together more effectively. - And bonus fun fact: It was apparently Earl who carved all those pumpkins, except for like one that was done by Geoff 😁

Bang!: - Found out what leopard-print article of clothing Layne was wearing! His belt is leopard-print, apparently! (Okay, I can't actually take credit for this one, someone in the comments of the BTS pointed it out and I took their word for it as I forgot to look myself, lol) - The place they filmed the video really did have all those cool backdrops, and so many more, split between two large rooms! - J was the one who got to throw the giant rubber duck at Layne 😝

Butter: "Geoff is looking at his phone, Layne is taking selfies on his phone!" - Not quite! They were both filming! (At one point in the video anyway). The footage they took got included in the BTS video, it's great 👌 - Also the reason the height difference between Layne and Eli in the group shots doesn't look quite as stark as in something like the Wicked Medley is because here Eli was standing on a short wooden box or something like that, not even kidding 😂

Halo Theme: "Those shoes are definitely cool. Who was wearing them, I wonder?" - It was Scott! - Also when that blue pulsating light thing landed on Scott's shoulder in the video (the "red team! blue team!" bit), there was actually a blue light being shone on him from the side to get the proper lighting effect. - (Also did you know that Rek Dunn (whom the video is dedicated to) used to help film some of the BTS content? I realised when I was watching the BTS for the Panic Medley that he was the one holding the camera and talking to the guys for some of the clips)

Wicked Medley: "Love the giant clock backdrop, very cool" - Yeah, turns out the whole background is one giant flat backdrop, and it took like 4 hours to full set up! Man!

"I adore Emoni and Rachel's makeup looks in this one." - The makeup looks even better in natural light! - All VoicePlay videos are filmed after the audio of the covers has been fully recorded/completed, obviously, duh. Often the vocallists will be properly singing at least some of their parts during videoshoots, but the audio all gets dubbed over for the final product. Rachel was purely lip-syncing in this video, because she had lost her voice! Thankfully/obviously it happened after she had finished recording her vocals, but she still did a great job of making it look "realistic" in the actual video.

The Dragonborn Comes: "Apparently what Cesar is wearing is like legit chainmail or something and was fairly heavy. Go big or go home I guess?" - Yep, it weighed 20 pounds apparently (approximately 9 kilograms). In between takes, Cesar would often just lie down on the floor on his back to try and rest/not have to feel so much of the weight, rip - The metal-looking gloves were real as well - they came coated in some sort of anti-rust oil that had to be wiped off prior to filming - And yeah Layne's hair really was a vibrant blue - I'm guessing Rick did it with coloured hairspray or something.

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3