#mykal

[robcoopz]

Jedi: Fallen Order: Kashyyyk Creatures

[fallingblueroses]

For @acaplaya-musings .

Clara's just a doll...right?

***

Mykal had been inside PattyCake Productions before, of course. But this time, something just seemed...off. He couldn't exactly put a finger on it, but the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck had been standing up ever since he'd arrived that morning.

He passed the door to the stage area and paused when he heard Geoff's voice. "Now you're going to be a good girl today and not try to scare Mykal. You hear me? No tricks today."

He peeked around the door and his mouth dropped. Geoff was holding a grayish, creepy-looking baby doll in front of him and wagging his finger in its face. "Mykal's a good friend. So behave yourself today."

Mykal swallowed. "Uh...Geoff?"

Geoff looked over and flashed a grin at him. "Oh hey Mykal."

Mykal slowly walked up to him. "Are you feeling okay there, buddy?"

"Oh sure. Just letting Clara here know that she needs to be good today." Geoff held up the doll, and Mykal jumped when he saw its eyes flash red for a fraction of a second. Must have been a trick of the lights...

"Hey Geoff!" Layne called from behind the curtains.

Geoff called back. "Yeah Layne?"

"Tell Clara to stop holding the storage closet door shut!"

Geoff sighed. "Clara, you heard Layne."

A few seconds passed and Layne called out again. "Thanks!"

"No problem!" Geoff kissed the doll's head. "That's a good girl. Now let's go get ready." He walked toward the dressing rooms.

Mykal followed, feeling a little more at ease. I get it. They're playing a prank on me. Well I can go along with it.

***

Cesar was sitting in a chair by one of the dressing mirrors when they came in, and his face lit up when he caught sight of them. "Hey, Geoff! Hi Mykal!" He held his hands out. "Hey there, Clara. Come to Uncle Cesar!"

Geoff handed the doll to Cesar. Cesar cradled the doll in his arms and spoke in a high-pitched voice. "How's my little cutie pie today?"

"Mischevious," Tony said as he walked by. "Had to clean the office wall again."

"What'd she say this time?" Cesar asked.

"The usual. 'Get out. Beware.'" Tony shrugged. "I wish she'd come up with something else."

"She's a baby," Geoff said. "What do you want, the Gettysburg Address?"

Cesar spoke in a cartoonishly important voice. "Fourscore and seven years ago..."

Geoff and Tony laughed, but Mykal found it hard to join in. He glanced down at the doll and yelled out when he saw bloody tear streaks on its face.

"What?!" Geoff cried out.

Mykal pointed at the doll. "The eyes!"

Cesar checked, then cooed at the doll. "Aww, did we hurt your feelings?" He held the doll to his chest and rocked it. "There, there. Don't cry. You know we're teasing."

Mykal stared, and began to slowly back away. Either he'd gone insane, or they had, and either way he was getting out of here...

The studio went dark, and then Mykal heard a high-pitched voice that sent shivers down his spine. "No, don't go...Play with me..."

"Clara! I told you to behave!" Geoff snapped. The lights came back on. "There. Now no more tricks!" He looked at Mykal. "She's acting up because we have company. Ignore her."

"Uh, s-sure." Mykal swallowed. If this is a prank, it's a really good one...

Eli came in, holding two large flat boxes. "Donuts are here!" He set the boxes down on the dressing table.

"Oh great! Thanks!" Cesar stood up, still holding the doll, and he, Tony, Geoff, and Eli began to help themselves to the donuts. Mykal was about to grab one when he saw a bloody line start to form on the mirror. His eyes bulged as it formed a circle, then eyes, eyebrows, and a mouth were drawn to make a smiley face. The blood began to drip down the mirror as he stared.

"Hey Mykal?" He looked over to see Geoff holding up a donut as if nothing was happening. "Better get a maple bacon before we eat them all."

Mykal stared at his friends, at the doll, then at the mirror. He managed to make a strangled, high-pitched "ah" sound before he blacked out.

***

Geoff sighed as he took Clara from Cesar. "That's it, young lady! You're going straight into time-out and you're going to apologize to poor Mykal when he wakes up!" He carried Clara out of the dressing room as Eli and Cesar knelt down and tried to wake Mykal up.

Tony sighed and began to clean the mirror. "We're calling that exorcist. I don't care what Geoff says about Clara having feelings. This isn't good for business."

[princessnamora]

Kate Wallis | 1x09

[willows-horde]

I ended up with so many screencaps for Be Prepared. There are only two folders (though one is a cheat because it has three different videos) of screencaps that have more. All three are well over a hundred 😅. I'm gonna try my best to find my favorites. Or just some good ones. It's going to be hard since I like so many of them...

(first appearances in the video)

(Pay Attention!)

("Even you can't be caught unawares." What I love about this bit is he turns and looks right into the camera. Little 4th wall break by talking directly to the viewers.)

(boop)

(nice shot with the whole group)

(can't decide which of these two I like better 😂. I'll end up making a gif of this bit later.)

(pretty...)

(Hey, did you hear that?)

(Idiots, I'll be King!)

(Long live the King!)

(You won't get a sniff without me!)

(i have dubbed this one as: Rock Star Geoff)

...

And I've hit my limit. There were so many more I could have done. But I guess these are my top thirty?

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals - Be Prepared

Voiceplay's full-length cover of Be Prepared was released on the 28th of September (or the 27th depending on your timezone, same deal as always), and in fact it's still the 28th for me as I type this! Yes, I'm getting this ready at least a couple of days in advance of when I plan to post it, 1 because I've waited long enough already, and 2 because VoicePlay's next release (their Halloween video) is meant to drop on Patreon before the end of September and I wanna get this done before it happens!

Anyway, this features Mykal Kilgore, who's an OG member, not technically of VoicePlay, but of "4 The Love", which consisted of Mykal, Geoff, Layne, and Earl, back when they were about 17 I believe? Then at some point they added Scott Porter as a beatbooxer and became 4:2:Five. Mykal appeared a little bit in Just Sing, but otherwise this is the first time he's properly reunited with Geoff and Layne and gotten to meet Eli and Cesar! He was definitely a great contribution to this video.

There's a lot to unpack visually in this video, and again, I've been dying to make this post, so let's! get! into this!!!

Honestly I can't even think of much to say about the overall set design right now other than yoooooo look how cool this is!!

They absolutely nailed the vibe/aesthetic of the original scene, while still keeping the set "simple" enough for plenty of movement and use of space!

Layne was in charge of the arrangement, creative direction, and video editing for this video, shocker to no one (a Disney song cover that places Geoff front and centre? Gotta be Layne's doing 😂 (and we love him for it!))

Oh yeah also I'm pretty sure the aspect ratio is a bit "narrower" than it often is for most VP videos? (Like the screen is more noticeably wider than it is tall.)

There he is!!! (It was at this point on my first watch-through that I had to take a moment to steel myself because I was like "nope nope nope hang on wait I don't think I'm actually prepared for this" 😅

As to be expected, Eli is credited with lighting, but he also helped out with the fog machine things shown here in this image (the one on the left is more visible here). VoicePlay hadn't worked with these things before, but they worked amazingly, and it's another thing to give the video similarities to the original movie scene. However, these things were actually Quite Loud

Not the clearest image but look at Layne and Cesar being all sneaky/creepy here! (Layne does a little skip-step thing in this shot here that's brief but kinda reminds me just a touch of his little run in This Is Halloween)

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Rick Underwood the man that you are, please, let me shake your hand, I love you (whether I'll still love him after the Halloween video remains to be determined, but anyway)

I mean honestly this is a Whole Look and I adore every part of it. The "facial scruff", the eyeliner, the freaking awesome jacket, the hair... I'm gonna stop myself from rambling too much too early ^^;

"I know that your powers of retention... are as wet as a warthog's backside."

A couple of things here:

1, You would probably expect Layne to just be another hyena (after all, there's many more than just Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed in the original scene), but it's possible that he might have intended to be a warthog, given this moment here (and also at the end of the BTS there's a clip of Layne messing around with one of the smoke/fog machines in a very Pumbaa-esque manner, lol).

And 2, credit to @ambular-d who first noticed this and pointed it out in the Discord server: Layne dips his shoulder here, "like Geoff's casual disdainful little swipe has some strength behind it." (directly quoting them here)

Okay now let's pay attention (ayyy) to our "main hyena trio" for a moment

There is no real style coordination here and yet somehow it works (well they're all in black/dark grey so they've got that in common). But like Cesar's got a grey leopard-print jumper/sweater (kinda cute ngl), Mykal's got a black fluffy (fringed?) shirt/sweater thing, and Eli's got a black leather jacket on (he looks very cool in it though - definitely suits him)

Mykal's the only one of the total five who isn't wearing some sort of necklace, but I guess he makes up for it with the bones hanging from the top of his head (and for all I know that actually might be a necklace that he just wrapped around the base of his hairbun)

ALSO I just went to go check my post for Friends On The Other Side because I was wondering if Cesar's necklace here was one of the ones worn by Geoff or Layne in that video, and I don't think it is (too short), but I'm 90% certain that Eli's necklace here is one of the same ones that Geoff was wearing!

Dramatic lighting flash! Low-key similar to Hoist The Colours (another video featuring scruff, guyliner, and heavily colour-tinted lighting), and also Geoff's recent Song Of Durin video!

(Also man I'm gonna hit image limit aren't I, lol rip)

"It's clear from your vacant expressions, the lights are not all on upstairs"

It's a blurry image, but I couldn't help but be tempted to do a Screenshot Comparison for this moment (plus another one a bit later in the song) because Layne absolutely understood the assignment and I was quite pleased that this bit got recreated!

(Also yes, Cesar is Ed, lol)

This moment in the video with Geoff and Cesar (including the second half of the line) got turned into a meme gif on the Patrons Discord server to represent VoicePlay and the audio distributors that they've been having issues with 😂

"And where do we feature?" "Just listen to teacher"

I don't remember it looking like that in the original scene! 😝 (but seriously, I love how Geoff and Cesar can't help but be cute together here - you should see their dynamic in some of the BTS videos, it's the best)

Pfft, this moment also got memed in the Discord server XD ("ask me to sing a G-1 one more time!" (credit again to @ambular-d) or alternatively "I said there are ants in the coffee again!" (that one's a reference to one of the BTS videos))

I'm honestly a little jealous of how cool Geoff looks while doing the sort of lifting motion he does in this moment here

Oh yeah that's definitely one of the Friends On The Other Side necklaces that Eli's got on

Also it took me an embarassingly-large amount of watches to realize that Cesar had painted nails for this one (in my defence, I was very distracted 😂)

Sure go ahead Eli, have your moment, stare into my soul, go on (affectionate)

"Of course quid pro quo you're expected, to take Certain Duties on board"

Again, not a great screenshot, but again, another moment recreated (at least in a general sense) from the original scene!

This is also a good place to point out how the lighting has changed from green to yellow, just as it does in the original scene, and it changed at the same spot as well (right on or just before the "it's great that we'll soon be connected..." line)

Oh rip it is tough to get good screencaps for this one (probably at least partially due to all the fog)

Anyway I wanted to point out that Layne's a little over an inch taller than Geoff (possibly two inches if you count the hair, lol), but in this one he mostly stays at least a little hunched, at least when Geoff's next to him, making Geoff look equal height if not taller (and from a storytelling perspective, it's great!)

"YOU WON'T GET A SNIFF WITHOUT ME!"

A quick shift to red colouring, again just as the movie scene (and also now the video looks crystal clear as well!)

(Also goddamn Geoff is really working the crazy evil villain look... like man 👀)

Mykal and Eli vibing, I love it

Cesar, Mykal, and Eli's reaction to the growl/roar 😂

Cesar is shook! Literally! XD

Nothing much to say here, just that Geoff looks amazing and is amazing

(Also shoutout to his white-grey hair, which was looking wonderfully-prominent in this video and I adore it)

(woof) HELLO THERE GOOD SIR 😳👉👈

This is a rare case of me not having a "he's so pretty" moment with Geoff in a video, but that's because for this one, it's more a case of "he's so hot" 👀

*insert evil laughter here*

And that's Be Prepared! Man, what a video!

Next on the list is of course VoicePlay's Halloween release for 2024, whatever that turns out to be. I'm both excited and nervous (or scared, even), but hey, I have no doubt it will give me plenty to talk about! Until next time!

[jules-has-notes]

Just Sing — VoicePlay music video

In times of societal stress, art is not just a good thing, but a necessity. It connects people across time and distance, uniting us through the expression of common emotions. So when VoicePlay found themselves unable to create videos in person, they did the same thing as many others around the world — they went remote. Since everyone filming in the comfort of their own homes meant that geography was no longer a concern, the guys reached out to a couple dozen collaborators spanning decades of recordings, and brought them together into an uplifting chorus of supremely talented voices.

NOTE: Make sure you have the captions on to see who everybody is in relation to the group.

Details:

title: Just Sing

featured performers: Kristina Palazzolo, Liam Gerrity, Rachel Potter, Mykal Kilgore, Tony Wakim, Darian Yancey, Emoni Wilkins, Sarah Vela, Tim Foust, Honey La Rochelle, Matthew Darren, VJ Rosales, Adriana Arellano, Elizabeth Garazzo, Anthony Gargiula, John Pinto Jr., Scott Porter, Jeff Thatcher, & Jarrett Johnson

original performers: cast of Trolls World Tour (2020)

written by: Justin Timberlake, Sarah Aarons, Ludwig Göransson, & Max Martin

arranged by: Layne Stein

release date: 15 May 2020

My favorite bits:

the way Kristina's face lights up when Liam joins in

ramping up the accompaniment behind Rachel

the overlap between Mykal and Tony on ♫ "everybody" ♫

reuniting the trio of Earl, Eli, and Tony from the era when they became VoicePlay

the ladies of Ten bouncing the lead vocals back and forth

Sarah's brash little shoulder brush (Heck yeah, she's good!)

Tim being greeted with his own signature growl from Geoff

the extra oomph Honey puts on ♫ "lips" ♫ and ♫ "soul" ♫

having VJ sing in his own Filipino language of Tagalog rather than the original version's Korean

bringing the friendly bass-off full circle with Tim's subharmonic ♫ "else" ♫ and the captions calling him a "show off 🙄"

that slow bell chord behind the end of John's section

J.None taking the lead for Guy Diamond's part again

all three vocal percussionists showing off their different styles

Elizabeth's soaring glissando to lead everyone back in

seeing all the singers together on screen at last

ending with simple homophony from the five guys and the kids

Trivia:

As Layne notes in the outro, VoicePlay donated their revenue for this video to MusiCares, which provides support to musicians in need. Their services were vital during a time when live performances weren't possible. This campaign raised over $170,000!

This project got a nice write-up on Broadway World to help promote the video and associated fundraiser.

VoicePlay's previous song from the Trolls franchise was released almost exactly two years earlier in May 2018.

Kristina's dad Pasquale also sang in the high school chorus that spawned 4:2:Five / VoicePlay, though he was a couple years older.

Liam's dad Sean Gerrity was part of the rotating cast when 4:2:Five were in the Polar Express Conductors show at SeaWorld in 2011.

Rachel was VoicePlay's first guest singer in a music video, and remains one of their most prolific, despite having moved first to Nashville and then New York. (When these guys really like someone, they don't let go easily.)

Mykal was the group's original high tenor way back when they were a high school barbershop quartet called 4 The Love, and into the early days of 4:2:Five. He left the group when the older boys graduated.

Tony has joked that he sees the VoicePlay guys more now than he did when he was a member of the group. Considering how frequently they film in and around the PattyCake studio, it's not much of an exaggeration.

Darian (aka DeeDee) is one of many friends the guys met during the fourth season of The Sing-Off. She was the final collaborator on their "Collide" project, and later recorded a duet with Layne during his paternity leave.

Emoni may have started as a fellow Sing-Off competitor, but she quickly became a dear friend and frequent collaborator. She has guested in music videos, joined them for both the first Sing-Off tour and a series of educational workshops, and plays Ursula in PattyCake's Villains Lair series. Not to mention becoming an honorary auntie to Layne's youngest daughter.

Sarah was one of their youngest Sing-Off pals, as her group Vocal Rush was in high school at the time, but she was a powerhouse even back then. When this was filmed, she was about to return to her alma mater and take over directorship of the group she helped to found.

Tim's group Home Free and VoicePlay have often been compared or even pitted against each other by fans ever since The Sing-Off, but the guys themselves have liked and supported each other from the beginning.

Honey was a theme park buddy from way back, and enjoyed joining the guys for The Sing-Off. There was a bit of friction between them after she wasn't able to join them for the tour, but it's nice to see that the passage of years and some extraordinary circumstances could bring them together again.

Matthew was another theme park pal, and was in serious consideration to replace Tony as the group's baritone back in 2017.

VJ and his group The Filharmonic are yet more Sing-Off alumni, who the guys got to know well on the 2014 tour. When VoicePlay joke about passing the torch to "younger, cuter" guys, it's not hard to see where they got the idea.

Adriana was their most recent new collaborator at the time, and has returned for a number of full-length videos and shorts in the ensuing years. (But she still wasn't old enough to drive yet here.)

Elizabeth is a friend from the guys' early days in the theme park scene, when she was a member of the Voices of Liberty at Disney World. This is her first onscreen appearance with them, but not her first (or last) collaboration.

Anthony is also part of the extended theme park community, and was supposed to appear in a different video before the quarantine put the kibosh on that plan. They've definitely made up for that disappointment in the years since, though.

John always seems to appear during times of uncertainty. His first collaboration happened after Tony left the group, this was put together during lockdown, and his third appearance came about after Earl retired. (That's just coincidental, right?)

Although Scott left the group to pursue acting in 2003, he's always been supportive from afar, and maintained ties with their extended friend group in Orlando. He even gets to show off his vocal skills in the course of his acting jobs sometimes.

Jeff was not only an inspiration to the youngsters in 4:2:Five as a member of Rockapella, but quickly became a colleague and a friend. He produced their first eponymous EP, and has created several pieces of artwork for them over the years.

Jarrett occasionally subbed as 4:2:Five's baritone when Ryan Reed was starting to step away, and helped produce VoicePlay's "Once Upon an Ever After" album. The guys have enjoyed seeing him find success as both a part-time member of fellow a cappella group Take 6 and in the film industry.

As the guys noted in the Patron behind the scenes video, this project was (by necessity) new and unique in a lot of ways.

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A group of fans created a tribute version a few years later using the karaoke track available through VoicePlay's Patreon.

This ended up being Earl's last video with the group, a fitting final bow, even if they didn't know it at the time. It almost feels like everyone came back to give him a great big send-off party.

[catenary-chad]

Even though I’ve gone into how Electra being a rich celebrity is a… really tragic contrast to irl US electric lines, I actually do think it can be a compelling direction. Especially if you go all in on basing them on MJ/Prince (though I know less about the latter).

I tend to picture them as a new model on trial/press tour and that’s why they have their crew following them around and celebrity status. Akin to the demonstration tour an ICE 1 trainset went on in the early 90s. Being shuttled around and in the spotlight since an early age in a “child star” sort of setup (akin to MJ) gives… a really tragic but interesting reason for why they’d still be relatively childish as an adult. It’s why Electra being pretty socially lost and having issues with boundaries and a near-endless need/capacity for physical affection has always stuck in my head.

The way Amtrak got strategic, bordering on conniving, in their attempts at freight service to break even over the years also nicely parallels how MJ was VERY strategic in his attempts at “gaming the system” to achieve crossover success and mainstream fame (such as crossing over to rock channels to appeal to white audiences). This video explains the history of why and how Amtrak did freight services better than I could:

And then there’s also the thread of how ugly tabloid media coverage of MJ got, only for posthumous info to shed a VERY different light on things like his wildly varied appearance (he had multiple medical issues like lupus and vitiligo that he tried to hide). I’ve already gone into how the NEC gets made fun of for what a mess it can be, when it’s due to very deep seated physical issues.

I know far less about Prince but someone described him as “challenging- in multiple ways, for better and worse” which I really love as a characterization for Electra. Being externally “difficult” to deal with and argumentative due to stress and the kind of circumstances they live and work in, but also being someone who’ll openly challenge supposed norms and speak up. Like “electrification can’t handle X, it’s too delicate for Y” “bullshit, here’s how WE did it in the 30s and Europe regularly does now, it’s all a matter of long term lack of investment”

I think the link of them both being notably conspiratorial is another interesting trait to give Electra. I think they definitely believe GM killed the trolleys and border on being paranoid about the government/railroads plotting against them and wanting them to fail, which… is honestly just true in a lot of ways.

This has been another TED Talk on how Electra is accidentally VERY interesting with real life/historical context. Honestly, I think going the MJ/Prince direction is a really great mix of being fun to watch and recognizable if you don’t know the language, but also full of potential to be a much deeper character.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Steal My Girl • Straight Up • I'm Not The Only One • Habits • Shake It Off • Blank Space • Love Me Harder • Anaconda • I Want It That Way • The Greatest Love Of All • Roar • Stacy's Mom • The Heart Wants What It Wants • Titanium • Jealous

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[musickickztoo]

Michael Rose  *July 11, 1957

[thehappysorceress]

Be Prepared - VoicePlay ft. Mykal Kilgore

[mythigal1966]

Stand By Me (acapella) VoicePlay ft. Mykal Kilgore

[wonderful-magician]

My Electra and Elektra look too thin. Not changing their refs. This is your sign to make your Electra's not super thin all the time. Whether it's making them buff or curvy. Do it. It's fun. (⁠ ⁠´⁠◡⁠‿⁠ゝ⁠◡⁠`⁠)

[fallingblueroses]

Wait for it...

[princessnamora]

Kate Wallis | 1x02

[blackmensuited]

[asterisk-666666]

I like that the Stex fandom is near unanimous on Electra always being the little spoon when cuddling.

It’s one of those things that gets funnier the bigger you imagine him. Original noodly Electra? Aw, such a needy little diva. Later “Jack Kirby illustration come to life” buff Electra? Dear god that would be like holding a huge, active, python, no wonder he has all those components to mind him. Imagining three of them handling and cuddling him at once is amazing.