Anatomy Of A Puppet

Greetings, Acting Fans & Blogonauts, and welcome to your regular Wednesday update from here at H&H HQ!
Chris here and while we're still in the slow phase of gradual planning, to use a bit of a train metaphor we're still getting the boiler up to steam, I thought I'd take the time for a brief musing on what goes in to getting the episodes made. You see I've got a bit of a background in Art, education wise - My degree was in Art & Design - but I haven't been what I'd consider a proper practicing artist in a while. That's where 'H&H: Actors at Large' has been a bit of a boon. One of the things I've really enjoyed is getting to exercise creative muscles I haven't used to their full capacity for a while by dreaming up some of the ideas we have for the series and then having to make them into 'real' objects. More on that at another time, I think though.
Another pleasure is having to teach myself how to do new things out of necessity for the series, like muddling my way through Audacity to sort out some sound issues for 'The Experiment' episode (darn that traffic - see 'Behind The Acting: Outtakes). It just so happens that the Series 1 Finale, the upcoming Episode 6: 'Anabasis' is going to require a bit of both and that's one of the things I'm looking into at the moment.

Source:garyhausplayers

Yep, I'm going to need to make a puppet! Or possibly more than one. That's where having a sister who runs her own Puppet Street Theatre Company might come in handy, eh. WHY exactly do I need to make a puppet? Well that would be [SPOILERS], so you'll just have to wait and see...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Awkward (Planning) Phase

Yep, We're stilling planning around.

Welcome back, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers it’s Friday and this is our blog post. So, Well, Erm...yes....what, um, what have we been up to since Wednesday? Well not a lot as it would seem. We are still in the very early stage of planning away, we're getting back into our swing but it's a slow swing (and there's loads to do on this episode) but, as we said in the Wednesday post, we can’t do much with all of this snow around at the moment. Never fear though, we are working on our Plan of Attack!

It only LOOKS like a nail (Source:mhcyoung.blogspot.co.uk)

I’ve been reading through the script and trying to storyboard some of the sequences but, well, let’s
just say my drawings are not very good at all, so that’s hasn’t really gotten us that far. It is just a matter of getting ourselves back in to the swing of things, picking up that swing and coming up with a plan of ACTION. So far though it's slow and steady as she goes.

Well, that’s it for Friday post, a whole lot of nothing that will eventually lead up to something, so it’s good night from him, and it’s good night from me.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Snow Blocked

Welcome back, fellow bloggers and Acting Fans, it's Wednesday so let me tell you what has been happening down here at the H&H production HQ. Well, other than a bit a planning and looking for materials for making props, not a lot.

As we feared before Christmas whilst filming 'Money' the winter weather has turned against us. Yes the snow has reinforced our current hiatus and put a bit of a stop to the production at the moment. We can’t do much as of yet, while not about to shoot a full episode we did have our fingers crossed about getting some additional coverage footage in the can. We still have loads to do. Like location scouting, finding other actors to help out, etc. but with all of this snow we can’t really get around. (Blooming snow).

So that’s it for now acting fans - keep warm, it’s bloody cold out there!

Now it’s goodnight from him and it's good night from me.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

So Here We Grome…..Damnit! I mean Go! Or was it come?

Welcome back, fellow Bloggers and Acting Fans, we are getting back in the swing of things here at H&H Productions (Not in full swing yet but a little swing, maybe a nice gentle swing, if you will - gradually building up speed) and here is this Fridays blog post - so let’s get down to it.

What have we been doing and just what, as I mentioned on Wednesday, do we have in store for you today? Well, calm down, sit back in that chair of yours and I’ll tell you, dear listener...er...I mean Blog reader.
After our couple of weeks off over the holiday season, we've been trolling through all of the footage shot for H&H so far, looking back at our progress. In particular we've been going over some of the things that went, well, a little wrong but why exactly have we been torturing ourselves with past mistakes?

To bring you the first of what shall be a series of videos that go 'Behind The Acting', and that's what we'll be calling them, to show you what goes into the making of an episode. This first one is full of Outtakes. Yep, we sorted through to pick out some of the more entertaining mess-ups that happened on set, along with one or two other high jinks for your enjoyment.

There are more episodes of 'Behind The Acting' to come to keep you tide over while we're on filming hiatus, though they won't be going up as regularly as the episodes themselves did - you're probably looking at once a month or so as we'll be busy. We have a lot to do, with hard planning and sorting out ahead of us, for what will be (if we can pull it off) the BIGGEST episode of Series 1. Don't worry, we'll be keeping you up-to-date on what's going on here on the blog.

So for now it’s a goodbye him, and it’s a goodbye from me.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

Previously on Harcourt & Haigh...

Welcome back, Acting Fans and Fellow Bloggers, and a belated Happy New Year to you all - are you ready for more Harcourt & Haigh shenanigans?

 First of all a, for those of you who came in late (& a reminder for those with poor memory skills), we are H&H Productions the producers of 'Harcourt & Haigh: Actors at Large', a web-based free-to-air comedy show on YouTube. We consist of Vernon Harcourt & Christopher Haigh the West Yorkshire based Actors/Writers/Whatevers and the brains, bodies and other associated limbs behind the series. This is our production blog on the progress of the series thus far. We are also have a fan page on Facebook and a Tumblr page as well.

Chris and I both write, star, film and edit the episodes, we are a Low-to-No budget production. We've managed to recruit a small rotating crew that help us out (Thanks, you guys!) as and when they are able to. So far we have 5 episodes live at this very moment on our YouTube channel. There are also a few trailers we have shot for the series up there (a couple of which are short skits themselves) and a pilot episode (you can see the joins a bit), there is a link on this Blog (just below, in fact) to Series 1 so far so feel free click (and catch up if you're not already exposed to our felonious thespians). I do hope you enjoy the series as much as we have enjoyed making it.
Filming itself is on hiatus right now, that is we're taking a pause to marshal our forces (we need plenty of bodies for the series 1 finale) and also because the winter weather has moved in and has made it a little too inclement to shoot outdoors. Expect regular updates on our behind the scenes progress.



Oh, and as we don’t want to leave the YouTube channel without something new going up during filming hiatus, we have a welcome back present video to post this Weekend - so  tune in to see what it is this Friday!

Until then it’s good bye from him and goodbye from me,

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt