STOP! Summer Time! (Special, that is!)

REJOICE, Acting Fans! It's HERE! Yes, Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum. Bring out the Special, let the Views come!

Now witness the funpower of this fully EDITED and OPERATIONAL Youtube video! I know we usually recommend an accompanying cup of tea but in this case we can't in all honesty. And if you risk it, well, we refuse to be held accountable for the resulting state of your keyboard/monitor/tablet device/phone.
As you can plainly see with your own two eyeballs (or less, or more - depending on the number you have been allocated) I got finished with the Summer Special on Wednesday night. A rather fortuitous turn of events happened with my talented sibling popping in at home for a flying visit. You see I needed a female performer for one of the required Voiceovers and, as you may gather, my sister is indeed female. One impromptu voice recording session later and 'This One Time...at Buntings Camp' was locked, stock and ready to Rock!
Now it's up to you, Internet Chums, disseminate as far and wide as you can! Post, blog, re-blog, tumbl, Bebo, Twitt and whatever else you can! To paraphrase Orson Welles, this film has escaped - so help it run to freedom as far as you can. As ever you will have our eternal thanks for doing so but, please, don't forget to enjoy it yourselves. That's it for this week, H&H OUT!

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Promises, Promises

Welcome back, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers, yep, it's time again for your first dose of the H&H blog this week. Let me get down to it. We have indeed been busy busy this week, as we said we would last week, we got into the editing of the Summer Special and, well, we have done just that.

Me, myself and Chris locked ourselves up in H&H HQ 2 to do it yesterday (Tuesday 27th August) and I can report the Final Cut is done (well, apart from two voiceovers which Chris is going sort out) but all of the main body of the episode has been done and finalised. And I must say it has come out rather funny indeed, if I say so myself - as I usually do but, dammit, I mean it! This time we have been quite ruthless with some of the cuts and editing because, after all, some of the things you write don't always work out on the screen and after it is filmed they just don't seem to fit in the natural flow of things.
We got done pretty quick too and for that I really have to thank Chris for taking his Bank Holiday Monday to get right into the prep of the rushes. Stripping off the "Actions" and "Cuts", sifting out the odd Outtake and chopping the selected footage up into handily-labelled, nice, edit-sized chunks. Fuelled by a lunch of exotic finger food and plenty of tea we got done, not too long after eating it.

So now we have got a complete special and as to when it is coming your way, you may wonder, 'When can we see it?'. Well, all I can, and will, say is soon, maybe even quite soon. Well, that's all of the update for today come back on Friday for more.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Loading Screen

Hello there, Acting Fans, a belated blog as we careen into the Bank Holiday Weekend! Though we haven't had a H&H Pow-wow since our midweek final Summer Special shoot there's still been activity at H&H HQ II - The Editing Suite, conveniently located rather close to my bed, ladies! (For when I get TIRED from all the EDITING, my dears, REALLY, how naughty of you!) Anyway since we got the footage shot it's up to yours truly to get the lot of it uploaded and ready to edit, so I've seen quite a bit of this:

Yep, the familiar site of the iMovie loading bar and, fortunately this time, not a lot of the spinny Beach Ball O' Doom:

I HATE that guy!

I'm happy to report that, after my memory kicked in and I grabbed a little bit of extra footage that I had to dive into the ol' H&H Footage Archive to load up with the rest, this screen is loaded to bear and ready for the H&H Cutting Crew (Myself and the irrepressible Vern, of course) to get on and wrangle it into an episode-y sort of shape. There may be a little additional prep for edit to do over the Bank Holiday but that's pretty much it for this week. Have a Grand Bank Holiday Weekend yourselves, Internet Chums and...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

It's Curtains For Us

Welcome back, bloggers and Acting Fans, yep, it's Wednesday update time so let's get down to this! We have actually had another busy week here at H&H HQ. Yep, we met up Tuesday (20th August) where we went over some new, well, new-ish ideas and we are still slowly planning out how exactly to get the last episode of series 1 filmed.

In the course of the meeting we also tried to figure out where to film the last two cutaways we needed for the Summer Special and, after a bit of rolling it around in thought and conversation (with the need to get a Summer Special out actually IN the Summer concerning us) we had a great idea. We could get it done right there in H&H HQ! We did some test shots for some of the Summer Special cutaways and we found out that, yes, the curtains in my game room looked rather good, well, great even with them drawn (and the big light on with an improvised spotlight from a de-lava-ed lava lamp shone up at an angle).

Curtains!

With that in mind we decided to go ahead and film the last two shots to go the very next day - TODAY! (Wednesday 21st). And, well, we did and I am pleased to be able to say the Summer Special is now in the can - finito, fin, done, finished...well, I'm sure you get the point. Now all that's left is the looong edit to get this into a funny special that you lot can feast your eyes upon! Well, hopefully not too long away we have pencilled in a date next week to lock ourselves in the editing suit with a fair few cups of tea and we won't come out until it is completed or one of us breakdown which ever comes first (or probably both).

Well that's all for now, Internet Chums, wish us Good Luck!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Submitted For Your Bemusement

It's the Weekend once again, Acting Fans, and time for the ol' H&H Productions update and, well, there's not much to update.
My learned colleague continues to pore over the footage (as well as hog the easy updates), I'm sure, but we have been unable to get together post-shoot this week. Yes, the status of the Summer Special hasn't changed but I have had a task to be getting on with in the meantime. Whilst on my wanderings, I have managed to get my hands on a couple of Mystery Items that will come in handy for finishing off the footage with the last couple of additional scenes, and here they ARE:

The Items of Mystery

Whatever could they be for? Well, you'll have to wait to find out, Internet Chums!

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Staying Out For The Summer

Welcome back, Acting Fans, Vernon Harcourt here with Wednesday's late-breaking blog post. I am pleased to say the reason for delay is that we have been back filming AGAIN!

Yep, that's right, folks! Once again we have gotten behind, and in front of, the camera and been out filming the Summer Special. In fact we have been doing it today! We managed to get together with our Special Guest co-star in the form of Logan Darkholme, esq. (yes, yes, it's his real name - we've been over this already).

Esteemed (cheap) Special Guest Co-star, Logan Darkholme

We went down to very white-ish room to film the main bulk of the Summer Special, secured with the help of our friend, sometime cameraman, location manager, Keymaster, comic book shop proprietor, erotonaut and upstanding pillar of the community (who by now should probably be getting a producer credit), Mr. Simon Shaw. And, well, it did go very well. After a few small, minor hiccups that is. Such as us finding some furniture and a few chairs (well something, anything, for me and Chris to sit on) we even had to ask our good buddy if we could borrow a few things from his shop, well, off his counter top, to fill out the Mystery Supporting Person's desk.

It's the MSP!

 And we may have forgotten a couple of Props but 'Ssh!' - no one need ever know which ones they were! Of course, I'm not going to tell either, tee hee!

Now, with the main bulk of the whole thing in the can, we are just two cutaways away from finishing shooting. I now have the task of going over the rushes to see which are the best takes to use. Now, if you'll excuse me there are a few to go over, 57 shots in fact are the total we took today (Hey! Now that's quite a lot for a Low-to-No Budget production). Apart from a few which we can't use either because they are outtakes or the line delivery is better on another take, most of them are looking pretty good. So I guess I'd best get on with it!

So that's it for now, see you all on Friday!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Taking Steps

Welcome to the Weekend, Acting Fans, and to the second of your semiweekly shots of H&H goodness! It's been 'Go!' at H&H productions this week, even after our weekend experimental shoot and the readthrough. the momentum seems to be continuing when it comes to the production of our Summer Special. Yes, this Wednesday Vern and I met up at his flat, along with our sometime collaborators in Crimes Against Acting - Jake & Hardy, to get on with filming the final shots of our upcoming escapade. Once gathered, our merry band headed not-too-far from H&H Productions HQ (yes, still Vern's shared abode) just over the road and along a bit to the Halifax Elim Pentecostal Church:

Bleh! (Architecturally speaking, sure the people inside are lovely)

As I'm sure you'll agree, as terrible a monstrosity of 60s/70s architecture as you are likely to find and therefore ideal for the needs of Myself and my Colossally Talented Acting Chum when it comes to the Summer Special setting for this particular sequence. Once set up it wasn't long (once we'd swotted up on a line or two) until we got through some nice takes of the sequence and with them in the can were once again on our way back to H&H HQ. Job well done. It just remains for us to get the main body of the special filmed, get the whole shebang edited and Bob's your Uncle* - job done! Fings crossed, Internet Chums, we're on our way!

That's pretty much it this week but, if I may, I'd like to end with a polite request for assistance. Unfortunately one of our Co-Stars is Missing!

MISSING: Muta

This young fellow, Verns flatmates' house cat (and our occasional hindrance/co-star), is missing. He answers to the name 'Muta' is 1 year old, microchipped, neutered and is an indoor cat. He went missing in Halifax town centre this Thursday morning (08/08/2013). If any Halifax-based Acting Fans could keep their eyes peeled and, if you spot him, get in touch we would all greatly appreciate it.

On that rather solemn note I'm afraid I must take my leave but stay tuned next week for more doings and please keep your fingers crossed for the cat in question, thank you and...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Saturday's Alright (& Tuesday Went Well Too!)

Well, hello there, Acting Fans and felow bloggers, welcome back to this the H&H blog for your usual Wednesday post. Let me tell you what have we been up to then over this week so far. Just sit tight right there and I'll tell you - that is if you keep reading, it IS a blog after all. Use your eyes!

Ok, Internet Chums so last Saturday we did indeed manage to get ourselves up to Manor Heath Park to do the experimental bit of filming and it was a sunny, shining success. It turned out we didn't end up going into the Jungle Experience to do it, nope, we filmed at a nice spot we found out in the Walled Garden area up there. We did sneak a peak at the Jungle Experience facilities but, well, while it might have had some nice exotic plants, it didn't look right. The 'Greenhouse' look of it seemed like it would be too hard to hide in the shots and we might not have been able to get as up close and personal with the Flora as we needed to, so we layed down on the grass in our ideal chosen spot, got out the [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] and went to work, and I must say having now reviewed the rushes that it does indeed look very good and should be funny. (Plus we saved TWO WHOLE POUNDS not going in, hey, every little bit helps on a Low-to-No Budget!)

Ooh, there's more............Yes, we have been busy!

Yesterday (Tuesday 6th August, 2013) Me, Chris and our good buddy Logan Darkholme (yes, that really is his name...legally) met up for a read through of the Summer Special script as we have found this is always good to iron out any problems with the script and change any lines that might not work or flow naturally the way we first wrote them (it does happen). It was a roaring success too, we laughed through it too, well I did - I'll have to put a lid on it for the shoot which won't be easy, it's pretty funny if I say so myself. All in all I am very pleased with how this script is turning out. You know it could be our best Special yet......could be. Though the other two out of three ain't bad!

Well, that's you lot for now we have now things to doing during the week but I leave that for Friday.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Life Finds A Way

Salutations, Acting Fans! It's the weekend and this one myself & my partner-in-crimes-against-acting will once again be on H&H productions duty. Yes, we're heading out on something of an experimental bit of shooting at Manor Heath Park tomorrow, now we know what times it's open of course.
Before then, however, I had dispatched Vern on a mission today with a very specific target and the old Colossal Acting Talent himself did not disappoint after scouring the various shops of Halifax he came up with this:

Jurass is MINE!

Yes, after being let down by all the pound shops and their ilk in the roundabout area, he managed to snaffle these from the Borough Market. Shop Locally, it is then. Excellent. Now whatever shall we do with them? Well now, that would be telling!

Stay tuned next week to see if our little experiment comes off okay, that's all for now, folks, so...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh