Geoff is definitely the greatest, and he really outdid himself on this one. You can hear the growth from Misty Mountains to this, its sequel. He even posted a short of him just singing into his phone the beginning of this song, no production. He is amazing.
usually 7-10 days for the arrangement part. depending on the song, a few days for the vocals if they're tough or one day if they're fairly straight forward. the video shoot itself takes anything from 4 hours for the simplest videos to a whole day if it involves heavy makeup/prosthetics, but ofc he also has to build the set and take it back down, and this includes all the lighting and any fog machines. video editing is usually 1-2 days, unless it involves green screen which can take much much longer. with all the other stuff that goes into making his music and videos, he barely is able to get one video out per month, often just barely making the monthly deadline. because in addition to all of this, he also has VoicePlay's music and music video to arrange, record and film every other month, and often some of the mini's as well on the months where he's not doing VoicePlay's main video. In addition to being a dad and husband of course. He's a busy man.
"Lots of Geoffs" is never a bad thing! I love that all of the dwarves got their time to "shine in the sun" in this video - we don't usually hear Geoff singing that high for so much of the song!
The costumes, beards and hairs were literally the same he used for "Far over the Misty Mountains cold". And the fact that they kept all the stuff since makes me think they kinda KNEW they would do a sequel... And now I'm hoping for a third video from the last movie of the Trilogy. 😁 I said "them" because Rick Underwood, the make up artist, kept the wigs and beards, while Kathy kept the costumes. They just added a few props (mainly weaponry... Not all up to the task, but I appreciate the effort 😅). The fact that he sang a whole section "up there" has me totally amazed. It's not just hitting a note. It's SINGING, and he was super good at singing in that range. 🙂 Watching your expressions throughout the reaction told the whole story. 🙂 Thank for doing this. See you next time!
I always enjoy your reaction to Geoff!! He is so, so talented. The first dozens of times I watched it, I paid attention to the sound and the production. Then I started listening to the lyrics and his acting. It broke my heart at that point. He portrayed such a wide range of emotions - resolve, sorrow, heartbreak and despair.
This song was written and performed by Ed Sheeran for the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It isn't played during the film, but over the credits at the end. Geoff has totally re imagined it in his usual style. Geoff has said that even if it wasn't his career he'd still do it, as it's just what he loves doing. And we love him for it.
Great reaction, thank you! Trying to answer your question: It seems (from what I've gleaned from Geoff's 'chats' with his patrons and the 'behind the scenes' videos he and Kathy have shared) that the bulk of time is spent with him working on the arrangement and then recording himself and doing what tweaks and production effects he wants on the vocals/instrumentals. Then he sends it on to Ed Boyer for the final audio mix and then there's versions sent back and forth as they work on getting that all done to both his and Ed's satisfaction. Usually by that time he has a pretty good idea of what he wants as far as scenery and costuming, and knows generally how he wants to film it, but that sometimes has meant a last-minute pivot if the props or backdrop he thought he wanted aren't available. (Or, as in 'Man of Constant Sorrow' that his original choice for location filming hasn't ended up being the right choice and they have to search for more options to film additional footage). Once all of those ducks are in a row, it seems that the actual filming goes fairly rapidly, particularly if it's all done in a studio, because he has a clear idea of what he wants and how the characters are going to be interacting with each other at that point. This video was one of the longer shoots, just because there was such an assortment of character makeup and costuming to be done, and everything had to be done in a certain order to make that go as smoothly as possible. And what was particularly amazing about this shoot was that Eli had pre-programmed all the lighting in such a way that he didn't even have to be there for the filming, and his program even allowed Kathy to control all the cameras at once, so that was an amazing help for them. I think Geoff does the final editing fairly rapidly as I have watched them do a livestream for a VoicePlay video shoot and he or Layne have had the video ready for viewing within a day or two. Off hand, I do know of two times that things didn't really go as planned: 1) He ended up shooting "Monster Mash" twice because what they filmed the first time just turned out to be 'graphically scary' and he decided the whole thing needed to be refilmed because he was shooting for 'funny/scary'. (Rick Underwood, the guy who did the makeup for 'I See Fire' and 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' had also done the makeup for Monster Mash originally, he wasn't available for the reshoot, so what you see in the released video is work done just by Geoff and Kathy!) And Ghost Riders in the Sky ended up being a major headache to edit because they had decided at the last moment to film it with green screening rather than against a physical backdrop. It took multiple tries for him to get the programming to cut out the parts he didn't want shown while leaving in the parts he wanted to keep. And each time he would try to edit it, he would have to wait hours for the rendering to finish for each of the 5 individual character's footage before he could see whether or not it had worked like he wanted and, if not, it was back to tweaking the setting and waiting for hours again to see if it was any better. At one point, he told Kathy he thought he wasn't going to be able to edit it into a usable form, and they would have to reshoot, and she responded an obscenty-laced 'no way', LOL. I think that was the longest wait we ever had between the end of filming the video and him actually releasing it.
Geoff is definitely the greatest, and he really outdid himself on this one. You can hear the growth from Misty Mountains to this, its sequel. He even posted a short of him just singing into his phone the beginning of this song, no production. He is amazing.
usually 7-10 days for the arrangement part. depending on the song, a few days for the vocals if they're tough or one day if they're fairly straight forward. the video shoot itself takes anything from 4 hours for the simplest videos to a whole day if it involves heavy makeup/prosthetics, but ofc he also has to build the set and take it back down, and this includes all the lighting and any fog machines. video editing is usually 1-2 days, unless it involves green screen which can take much much longer. with all the other stuff that goes into making his music and videos, he barely is able to get one video out per month, often just barely making the monthly deadline. because in addition to all of this, he also has VoicePlay's music and music video to arrange, record and film every other month, and often some of the mini's as well on the months where he's not doing VoicePlay's main video. In addition to being a dad and husband of course. He's a busy man.
"Lots of Geoffs" is never a bad thing!
I love that all of the dwarves got their time to "shine in the sun" in this video - we don't usually hear Geoff singing that high for so much of the song!
The costumes, beards and hairs were literally the same he used for "Far over the Misty Mountains cold". And the fact that they kept all the stuff since makes me think they kinda KNEW they would do a sequel... And now I'm hoping for a third video from the last movie of the Trilogy. 😁
I said "them" because Rick Underwood, the make up artist, kept the wigs and beards, while Kathy kept the costumes. They just added a few props (mainly weaponry... Not all up to the task, but I appreciate the effort 😅).
The fact that he sang a whole section "up there" has me totally amazed. It's not just hitting a note. It's SINGING, and he was super good at singing in that range. 🙂
Watching your expressions throughout the reaction told the whole story. 🙂
Thank for doing this.
See you next time!
I always enjoy your reaction to Geoff!! He is so, so talented. The first dozens of times I watched it, I paid attention to the sound and the production. Then I started listening to the lyrics and his acting. It broke my heart at that point.
He portrayed such a wide range of emotions - resolve, sorrow, heartbreak and despair.
This song was written and performed by Ed Sheeran for the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It isn't played during the film, but over the credits at the end. Geoff has totally re imagined it in his usual style. Geoff has said that even if it wasn't his career he'd still do it, as it's just what he loves doing. And we love him for it.
Great reaction, thank you! Trying to answer your question: It seems (from what I've gleaned from Geoff's 'chats' with his patrons and the 'behind the scenes' videos he and Kathy have shared) that the bulk of time is spent with him working on the arrangement and then recording himself and doing what tweaks and production effects he wants on the vocals/instrumentals. Then he sends it on to Ed Boyer for the final audio mix and then there's versions sent back and forth as they work on getting that all done to both his and Ed's satisfaction. Usually by that time he has a pretty good idea of what he wants as far as scenery and costuming, and knows generally how he wants to film it, but that sometimes has meant a last-minute pivot if the props or backdrop he thought he wanted aren't available. (Or, as in 'Man of Constant Sorrow' that his original choice for location filming hasn't ended up being the right choice and they have to search for more options to film additional footage). Once all of those ducks are in a row, it seems that the actual filming goes fairly rapidly, particularly if it's all done in a studio, because he has a clear idea of what he wants and how the characters are going to be interacting with each other at that point. This video was one of the longer shoots, just because there was such an assortment of character makeup and costuming to be done, and everything had to be done in a certain order to make that go as smoothly as possible. And what was particularly amazing about this shoot was that Eli had pre-programmed all the lighting in such a way that he didn't even have to be there for the filming, and his program even allowed Kathy to control all the cameras at once, so that was an amazing help for them. I think Geoff does the final editing fairly rapidly as I have watched them do a livestream for a VoicePlay video shoot and he or Layne have had the video ready for viewing within a day or two. Off hand, I do know of two times that things didn't really go as planned: 1) He ended up shooting "Monster Mash" twice because what they filmed the first time just turned out to be 'graphically scary' and he decided the whole thing needed to be refilmed because he was shooting for 'funny/scary'. (Rick Underwood, the guy who did the makeup for 'I See Fire' and 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' had also done the makeup for Monster Mash originally, he wasn't available for the reshoot, so what you see in the released video is work done just by Geoff and Kathy!) And Ghost Riders in the Sky ended up being a major headache to edit because they had decided at the last moment to film it with green screening rather than against a physical backdrop. It took multiple tries for him to get the programming to cut out the parts he didn't want shown while leaving in the parts he wanted to keep. And each time he would try to edit it, he would have to wait hours for the rendering to finish for each of the 5 individual character's footage before he could see whether or not it had worked like he wanted and, if not, it was back to tweaking the setting and waiting for hours again to see if it was any better. At one point, he told Kathy he thought he wasn't going to be able to edit it into a usable form, and they would have to reshoot, and she responded an obscenty-laced 'no way', LOL. I think that was the longest wait we ever had between the end of filming the video and him actually releasing it.
Always excited to see your reaction. This is just over the top, even for Geoff. He's just getting better and better.
Jeff outdid himself here. Magnificent.
Geoff not Jeff.
It’s easy to forget, that’s also Geoff playing the piano.
Thanks Sam, always appreciate your opinion and enthusiasm.
Thank you for your reaction!
💯🔥🔥👀👀👏👏 Wow!!!
More and more of his solo stuff -- just sends ya in a spin! :) Be Safe
When I hear Ed Sheeren sing, I instantly think Geoff Castellucci deep bass cover. Don't you?
Thank you for a lovely reaction.
Awesome reaction.
Great version. I also liked Peter Hollens' version.
You might also want to review the video setup. The right one third of the screen is nothing but wall and couch. Definitely wasted space
I think I see fire took around 4 months
but just 2-3 days in the studio, the editing and reheashal, is months
Anyone else hear that white noise that sublimates the whole video? I love her reactions but that massive white noise.
What’s the static in your background? It really interferes with both the video and your comments. Makes this almost unlistenable.