Cuckoos in Flight (Redux)

Hello, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers and people of world.....Erm, first off  sorry for the lateness of the blog - I've been a bit busy, what with rehearsall for 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. Yes, You heard that right. I am going to be treading the boards again, reprising the role of the Chief in the Actor's Workshop's. They are gearing up to put it on again after the last attempt fell through, and I'm always game for sitting comfortably (but not complacently) on the stage. More on that later, now let's get down do it. First off we (that is me and my flat, er, housemates) are all moved in and unpacked, so H&H HQ 2 shall be ready for filming in within a few weeks. Yay!

Central Role

Next on to what have we been doing (besides me rehearsing for a play, of course), we - me, myself and Chris - had another meet-up (yes, two in one week!) in our Nero's haunt once more. It's starting to become a habit. So, after picking up my Free Drink (yep, that's how regular we've ended up in there) and a bit of none-H&H talk (we do seem to do that a lot), we got down to it. And once again we ended up working out another full Actor's Log idea to write out, so that leaves us at about six I think written in at least a first draft now and, with some luck, we shall be getting this one done for June Actor's Log, filmed and up for your eyes to see very soon. Once again this Vlog entry is based on actual True Life Events, well, a conversation on Facebook comments, so True Online Life Events.

'What is it?!' I hear you cry out, well, my dear fans, you'll just have to wait and, of course, see...

That's all for now, I shall see in the world of Tomorrow!!!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

Objects in Motion, Objects at Rest

Welcome to the midweek checkpoint, Acting Fans, and it being a post-Bank Holiday weekend Wednesday you would be forgiven for thinking we have nothing to report but you would be WRONG!
Yes, despite the Bank Holiday or Vern being Mid-Move (and me cutting several rugs with my dancing shoes the prior Sunday night) we managed to meet up for a bit of H&H business. As it turned out this Bank Holiday Monday was a bit of a lull in Vern's Transdomicileular Relocation with Vern and his flatmates, er, I should say HOUSEmates (or is it New Landlords? We'll have to ask their preference) having managed to move all the stuff they could do themselves at the weekend (even with yours truly popping by to help out by doing very little, if anything at all - hey, I had a cover blog to do and my second job to go to! Anyway it's the thought that counts. And I thought I could get away with it!). The burly Moving Men being booked for the following Tuesday (let's face it, hiring movers on a Bank Holiday Weekend is sheer madness - think of the EXPENSE!) he had the day free and a busy Tuesday & Wednesday to look forward to so he texted me about getting together first thing this week. A text I got much later in the day whilst heading out on an ultimately fruitless search for some Granola (they only had 'Tropical Fruit', BLEH!), after my cereal failure I met Vern at what seems to be becoming our local haunt coffee-wise, Halifax's 'Nero's'.

Missing Cereal

After our usual chinwagging, we eventually got back down to the business called 'Show' and hammered out a few things about our upcoming Actor's Log ideas and scripts, including the potential titling of a couple of them but more info on that would be [SPOILERS]! We realised we've been lucky with our judicious choice to shoot a quick and dirty 'sequel' Actor's Log so we didn't end up missing one this month and May being a bit of a 'longer' month the way it's fallen this year, we have a decent amount of time to prep for our next shoot whether we're ready & able to shoot at H&H HQ2 or not. More plans for Total Internet Domination were mooted and even a poor unfortunate Barista who drifted too close to our conversation got a business card and an invitation to become a willing victim contributor to the H&H Media Machine. We do, after all, need them additional warm bodies. And with that, and an awful lot of unpacking ahead of him, Vern & I parted ways - so that's your lot for this mid-week stay tuned for a weekend update from m'learned colleague this Friday and,

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Intermission

Pad & Pen

Yes, Acting Fans, you've made it to Humpday once again and, before the swift slide to the weekend really kicks off, here's the midweek status of H&H Production. The wheels are well and truly in motion at H&H HQ with furious effort being put into the preparation of places for the Big Move. Fortunately Vern was able to break off from the relocation activities to once again meet up wit me at the local Nero's, we'll end up regulars if this keeps up. Importantly he had also brought his H&H notepad & pen, of course.

The new format meet-up with the addition of proper coffee is proving to pay of dividends too, as after a bit of a catch-up and chatting about this & that we did in fact get around to actual H&H business. And, boy, did we do the business! Yes, we ended up with 4 or 5 more rough ideas for upcoming Actor's Logs, meaning including last weeks efforts we now have 8 or 9 ready to move into development and that's not even going into the possible new format shorts we look at!
Since that Tuesday get-together Vern has had his nose to the grindstone (well, to his PC Monitor) and his shoulder to the wheel (okay, his fingers to the keyboard) and has expanded 3 of the Actor's Log ideas into first drafts, which I am currently giving the once-over. Which I shall now be leaving you to get on with, so that's all for now, Folks...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Steady Now

Welcome back, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers and people of the Internet, it's Friday once again and time for me to have my say, my way!

So! Me and Chris got to have our weekly minimum meet-up yesterday in a coffee house (well, we are writers after all) and main focus of topic was to discuss what we shall still refer to as the Mystery Opportunity. And after much talking about the Mystery Opportunity we both ultimately felt at this moment in time we were not quite ready to take it. You see the Mystery Opportunity has only come to our attention recently and it would mean getting paid to do H&H stuff but we would only have 2 months, during some of which I shall be treading the boards (but that's for another post, oh yes, once a tease always a tease), to come up with something funny, that would work and what we would be happy with presenting to the public LIVE. So as much as Chris and I do want to do this Mystery Opportunity, we think it would be better for us to plan it out more thoroughly and make sure that we are happy with what do. Not some rushed version of a live show might not work so well, though the idea of making some money via H&H is tempting we remembered the golden rule - 'Never do anything for the Money'. To quote Neil Gaiman, "Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me. I don't know that it's an issue for anybody but me, but it's true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn't wind up getting the money, either." There's always next time, which is why we are keeping the Mystery Opportunity a Mystery in case we pull it off later. Despite putting it aside for now, we did come up with a number of ideas we will try to develop into live performances whilst we continue with our episodes and vlogs. Keep your eyes peeled, Acting Fans!

A blatant attempt at extra hits by using pure prime Tumblr bait, you say? Perish The thought!

Okay, so what else do I know you want to know? Ah, yes, we discussed some more about up and coming Vlogs (possibly new format ones), tried to get some more ideas down and think about a workable way to get on with shooting the last episode of series one. As we need to do it, for US and for you - The series 1 hiatus is getting crazy long now! Don't worry the Actor's log shall be continuing too, it's too much fun to stop.

We got on to a brief discussion about series 2, yep, we are still going to do a 2nd series too, like we said there is some very BIG plans for H&H. So please, please, please like and share our videos please. With a cherry on top. And all the Bells & Whistles.

Okay, see you all in the future and at H&H HQ two!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

The World of Tomorrow...

Welcome to the Wednesday blog post, Acting Fans, where you find the H&H team wondering about where to go next as we follow Time's Arrow. If you haven't had the pleasure already, please make your way over to our channel to check out the latest Actor's Log, number 9, and the last to be filmed at our former HQ, the fanfare for Flat 2:

Now as we wait, we wonder. We have already mentioned we do have plenty to do for H&H in the Future but besides more videos (including the still to be filmed final episode of Series 1) what we haven't mentioned on the blog is that we have also mooted other things. We wonder about doing something a bit different next. Should we do something rather more radical and daring than simply posting videos to Youtube, something a bit more...alternative?
It just so happens that recently I have come across something that might fit that, and I have communicated the possibility to m'learned colleague. I don't want to say exactly what, just yet - especially as it may not come off - but the 'Mystery Opportunity', as I shall refer to it for now, will be the main thing that we discuss at this week's H&H tête-à-tête. For the moment I shall have to leave you wondering...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

The First Cut Is The Quickest

Welcome back, Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and people of the world's Internets. Yes, it's Friday once again and my turn to bring you up to date on what has been happing down (and then up) at H&H HQ.

Well after a very successfully and fun shoot on Wednesday, having got everything that we needed too (even going back and shooting a bit of extra coverage after we had initially done for the day, we are getting better at this filming lark, honest) and as Chris said in the last blog, I can confirm it was the last shoot of this location, and soon it shall be on to the next place for H&H, the keys are nearly in different hands as I write. We also have some more vlog drafts written and nearly ready to go as well as some more wild and wacky idea's for the future don't you folks worry about that .

Anyway, back to the latest shoot, so with all of the footage in hand and having picked out of the footage which shots we wanted to use it was then off back to the Editing Suite it all went with Chris on his handy stick drive (which he'd actually remembered this time). The edit was started the following day, it began by Chris locking himself in his Editing Suite at 11o'clock, then cutting and pasting away. Mid-afternoon Thursday, I was surprised by a text message from Chris that he had a first cut that was already ready and waiting for my eyes to look over it. So it was brought on down to H&H HQ for me to look over, after being warned that he had been pretty brutal with the cutting to try keep the runtime down, I stuck it on my PC to give it a long hard good look...... and it was all good! I do believe this has been one of the fastest turnarounds on any video we have ever done for H&H.

From it's writing to filming to edit to me saying "Yes, it's good to go", it was done and dusted without any additional cuts or notes from me required. (See, I told you we were getting better at this filming lark!) And that was without any simplifying of the script or cutting corners, well, apart from a cheeky bit of prop flubbery which some keen-eyed Acting Fans may be able to spot! So when can you all see this next Actor's Log? And perhaps do some flubbery spotting? Well, I can tell you it shall be live this very coming Monday (the 12th) for all to see! Oh, and please do post it anywhere and everywhere. Please. Pretty Please. We need those hits!

Well, thats all for now folks!

TTFN

Oh, Shoot!

A hearty Wednesday Welcome, Acting Fans, and it's been a busy day at the soon-to-be-former H&H HQ! Yes, we've been at it again, thanks to someone finally remembering he needed to shave only just before setting off for the Set. (Oops!)

The Goss, the Biz!

Now that picture might not look like business but let me assure you it most certainly is! Specifically the business called 'Show'. Yes, after the 2nd Bank Holiday weekend in a row, with the deadline of Vern & Co.'s big move looming ever closer, we got our skates on and ourselves together today to get on with the shoot for the final Actor's Log to be filmed at H&H HQ Mark I. Yes, that's all at the flat folks, but fear not H&H will continue!
After a brief runthrough the lines whilst sorting out our costume and props, we withstood the heat and got into the kitchen to kick things off. With a flub or two, a bit of ad-libbing and some improvisation, we got through the shoot but not without some flagrant paper and soft furnishing abuse. It is in the can after all that and having helpfully remembered to bring my flash drive stick this time meant it could go straight back to the Editing Suite with me.
Hence this rather perfunctory blog entry, I've got some uploading, trimming and pasting to do! so, yes, for now that's your lot!!!

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Weekend At Vernie's

Welcome Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and all people of the Worlds Internet. Yep, it's Friday once again and it's blog time. So here's what else has been happing over here at the H&H HQ.

Well, after our meet-up earlier this week as Chris tweaked (tweaked, not twerked that's a different thing entirely. Chris doesn't do that. Hmm, well, Chris doesn't do that sober) I have been writing some more Actor's Logs, well, writing up the Future ones me and Chris were talking about, getting the ideas wrangled down into a workable script. Something that in it's own right can quite difficult, especially when we have talked about so much - it can be hard to remember it all, so remember budding Youtube Producers you can never have too many notes!

Lastly we are going to be filming the next Vlog at this current location of H&H HQ, yep, one last one before the big move. A Final Filmic fling and a farewell to the flat. That shall be next week in fact and, fingers crossed, it shall becoming to your eyes very soon!

Fortunately for us, this one it isn't as props heavy as the last one (well, we *might* be cheating to save on messing about making a prop we'll probably only use once) but sadly there won't be any tasty treats for me this time either (Mmm...braaains!), so it should be quicker for us to do.

Well that's your lot for today, I'd best get back to writing!

See you in the WORLD OF TOMORROW!!!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt