Friday, October 31, 2014

It's Halloween Time!!!!


Welcome Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and the people of the worlds Internet, it is Friday and not just any ol' Friday - it's HALLOWEEN mwahahahahah!!! So, erm, anyhoo back to it and the 'it' that  it is back to is crunch time for all of our H&H fans! Yes, we need your help if you could please, please go and watch this years Halloween Special, and please gives us a like and subscribe too. Now I know Chris asked this of all you on Wednesday too, but we do need to get people out there to see it, and power is in all of your hands! So please gives us those views and likes. More views and likes can mean more fun for you too!

What else is happening down here at H&H HQ? Well, despite the blackly festive season we do have an Actor's Log vlog in the works and it is going to be going up next month (which is tomorrow, jeez, where has this year gone!?!). This vlog has been our floating vlog and has been filmed for a few weeks too but we have wanted to let something sink in and kinda make sure that you have been watching closely too. Well have you been??

Then it's going to be on to planning and filming the Christmas Special, yes, sorry to break it to you that time of year is once again almost upon us. We did have an idea but due to me starting work soon we going to have put that back until next year as we need a few props and costume for it too! So that leave us to come up with an another idea for this year. Well, surely we can do this we work well under pressure and to deadlines. So WE CAN DO IT, hahaha! And I must stop calling myself Shirley...

Well that's all for now folks

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Takeover TV Terror

Greetings, Acting Fans, and as the sharp-eyed among you may have already noticed our latest Hallowe'en Special has escaped into the wild just in time:


That's not all though, Vern and I have also managed a Tuesday tête-à-tête on upcoming H&H Beeswax and we have hit upon a diabolical scheme, one of such pure devious nefariousness that it needs not only us, but involves you lot too!!!
Yes, this Hallowe'en we are going to try to harness the power of you nebulous internet chums to give the H&H channel a boost by getting as many likes and views as possible. To help kick it off we have started this Facebook Event here:


Even if you yourself do not have a foot in Facebook, you can still help out by watching our Hextra Bite between now and Hallowe'en Night, then 'Liking' the video with the ol' Youtbe Thumbs Up and then sending a link to someone you know who might enjoy the old H&H shenanigans but who hasn't seen them before. With all your help we can RULE THE INTERNETS!!! Or, ah, at least get a few extra views and a bit of a boost up the ol' Youtube listings. Heed our Dark Prayer and help us take over Youtube, just for Hallowe'en. Oh, And have a great one yourselves!!!

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Friday, October 24, 2014

Cut Approved

Good Day, Acting Fans, fellow blogger's and people of Internet!!! It is Friday and the H&H update is on me! As Chris mentioned on Wednesday's blog we - well, he (I've been on a training course) - has done a cut of the Halloween Special and it was then sent to me by the almighty power of the Internet to cast my eye over it and see if (anything) could or might need to cut from it.


Well, I am very pleased to say Chris did an excellent job of the Halloween Special it is all well and very good, and funny, special. Everything that we envisioned has worked this time, with only a few lines cut as they would have not gone with the flow of it, putting off the pace. Now this brings me on to the special ending that we had planned out for it. I still really would like to get in done but as I have been on that course I mentioned all of this week (ending today in fact) we haven't had time to film this ending. Unless we have some free time this weekend we might not be able to squeeze it in. If not, it might have to go up as an Extra Hextra Bite as I would really like for you all to see the ending we have in mind and it does play a vital part in the next Halloween special. I know, it sounds very interesting, and so it should!

Hopefully either way this years Halloween Hextra Bite should be beaming to your eyeballs very soooon!

So long for now folks and see you in the future.

TTFN

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Submitted For Approval


Greetings and salutations, Acting Fans! Just a short one to let you know how the regular H&H Halloween production is coming on, and come on it has. I have taken my first pass at the footage we have and it now sits awaiting in a DropBox folder for my partner-in-crimes-against-the-internet's to take look at it.
Yes, I have wrestled with the shots (plus a measure of self-doubt) and come up with the best what I could. Now all we need is for Vern to cast his keen eyes over it and give us the yays and the nays. Looking at what we have so far we may have to discuss altering our original plans, but all in good time - he does have to do the course he's on at the moment too, poor chap. Nevertheless the H&H machine seems back on track, fings crossed!

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Friday, October 17, 2014

Back Filming the Elm for Halloween

Welcome Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and people of the worlds' Internet, it is Friday - once again a my turn to ramble on, so ramblers lets get rambling.... What have we been doing. Well we haven't been into the woods but we've been around some trees...

Pretty sure there's an Elm in there somewhere but trees aren't my strong point. Dammit, Jim, I'm a Filmmaker, not a Tree Doctor!
Well as said in Wednesday's Blog we were going to be filming again and, yep, fortune was with us this time we once more got behind and in front of the camera. We did it on Thursday now at first we were just going to do the INTerior shots of the Halloween special but, as the day turned out be so nice, clear and dry day, we thought why not get some of the EXTerior shots too. At first we were just going to do one of them which involved an old character popping up from previous special, plus it was also going to be a test for a deliberately lower-tech camera to see if the effect it would give was going to work.

And it worked very well indeed thanks to the older digital camera Chris had bought way back in the early Noughties. The jittery movement of the video on the camera gave the exact effect that we were after. After all, if you can do it camera it always better, cheaper and easy in the edit, so with this test  shot being so much better than we thought, and only being able to film 6 min on this old camera, we decided it would be best to gun it and get the rest of other sequences we were going to use it on done too. Especially as we had the day, the light and the nice weather.

So with both of us out there taking turns to film different sequences using both the the old camera and our trusty Lumix, we got all of the EXTeriors done and in record time, as some of them were just one takes. (Yep, we are really getting that much better). Besides one battery crash (Chris had warned me about the OG DC's battery life) that left us briefly powerless and meant I had to walk back to H&H HQ to get the spare batteries (luckily we had plenty, we just didn't bring them all out with us, d'oh!) it all went well. Then it was on to actual H&H stuff, in-character and everything, as that was all INTerior and we decide to go mainly with a static two shot partly for speed and partly for contrasting atmosphere with the more , let's say, 'lively' EXTeriors. Though this meant just going through some main scenes in single takes without any cutaways so we needed lines bang on. Which, after a slow start and a few small fluffs, we did eventually get them down and in the can.

Once that was done along with some clever reversal shots, making sure lighting would match up as we had filmed one half of them much earlier before we went on out extended EXTerior shoot, it was on to the last two POV shots and the endcap scene with H&H (yes, that's us). That was the real easiest one an, once again I got to eat a prop, always the best props are edible I find, but in true H&H style, just as we were getting ready to finish for the day, we remembered a short sequence we hadn't done! Once again Chris donned his outfit to do this last scene which is, well, it was just as important as any other scene and more importantly would have harder to re-shoot at a later date. Finally with everything done in and around H&H HQ. It was a wrap now, all we have left to do is the end of which I can tell you NOTHING about....mwhahahahah!!!

Well that's all for now folks see you in the future.

TTFN


Vernon Harcourt



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Making A List, Checking It Twice

Happy Humpday, Acting Fans, and it is a happy one here at H&H Productions - fingers crossed we are actually going to get some actual production with some actual filming tomorrow! Yes, you read that right - Filming! Yes, it has been a while thanks to unfortunate circumstances and filming-unfriendly work patterns. Keep your Fings crossed for us!



And, seeing as it has been a while, we are wracking our brains to draw up a list of exactly what we will need for tomorrow, besides some good luck for a change. The script is in place, a couple of new co-stars have been drafted and we are raring to go. Let's just hope the weather is with us when it comes to our outdoor shenanigans.
Heads have already been put together at our usual meet-up this Tuesday at our usual haunt (Nero's once again) all we have to do is get everybody and the stuff together. Hopefully we will be ready well in time for Goth Christmas! Now I'll leave you with this short, short blog as I go to check the list a third time.

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Friday, October 10, 2014

Keeping It Funny

Hello Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and people of the Internet once again Friday is upon us so here is your round up of what has been happening at the H&H HQ. Firstly once again apology for no midweek blog posting on Wednesday, once again Chris' busy work schedule as got in the way and kept him very busy but with his dogged determination and dedication to H&H we did get a meet up on Wednesday after he finished his shift that day.

Flippin' Time slippin'!
What has been going this time, well, quite a bit actually despite the business, now, just sit right there and let me tell about it. First thing is Chris has been going over the Halloween script with fine tooth comb AND a toothpick, if you like - metaphorical ones obviously, using real ones would be daft, to add anything I missed and pull out some of the joke threads I might have started but not made them fully fleshed out. Some of the scenes with H&H needed a bit more punching up to the dialogue in them and, of course, getting around (finally!) to putting on the new ending, which you shall see. Now we just got to find some locations. Hmm, easier said I think, but we can do it!

At the meet we did discuss the filming, how and when we were going to do it and, hopefully, we shall be starting next week. We really need to get on as the month is ticking away and soon it shall be November and, well, we would have missed it (Halloween, of course, how can you forget Goth Christmas?!). We also did sort the thing I hinted at last week plus how and where we are going to use the Mystery Item. The only thing I can say it might pop up quite soon, well, maybe, with good luck. We came up with, well, I say we it was Chris with a quick couple of lines for H&H to well, erm, something but, erm, as to where those lines will turn up we don't know, yet. But it shall get used as we did this with the last lines in Grog, and look what happened there. We wrote them down and we did eventually find a place for them and it shall happen once again. So Say I, Vernon Harcourt!

Well, that's all for now folks see you in the FUTURE!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt


Friday, October 3, 2014

Taxing Times

Hello Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and people of the words Internet! THIS! IS! FRIDAY!!! Once again it's time for my Brando-style ramblings, the horror, the horror! First there is one thing to say, and that word is sorry! Sorry for no blog on Wednesday, folks, but Chris has been very busy at work, in fact he has done and 8 days straight through the weekend (blooming day jobs! Boo! Hisss!). So that we have not even had time to get in our weekly meet and chat aways. He did manage to get his Tax done during this time though, thanks to this world of tomorrow's online returns filing, which means the old Haigh brainspace can be put back to work on more H&H stuff now, Groovy!


That leaves me to tell you what have we been up to, well, as apart of trying to get a few more views, I did a bit of a big Facebook cross-post of last month's vlog. I thought it was worth a go as it was in limbo at only about 11 views, I am pleased to say it worked and it has now bumped it up, at least a wee bit. I have also been working on some idea for the TOP SECRET project we very briefly talked about a few weeks back. In that I have been doing some research on to a list of idea that we can use for them. and how to make them into what we want them to be. Yes, I know that sounds very, very cryptic too but I really can't say anymore on this as it still in a very early stage of development. Trust me, they shall becoming your way soon.

On a different note (a C# in fact), we did kind of come up with another Actor's Log vlog idea via me and Chris talking by text which is sort of a nod to an very controversial film (and play), well, for it's time. This could be a very controversial vlog, well, maybe. But first we have to find a willing actor to do this vlog for us, and it could be a darker vlog! Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!
Erm, where was I?
Erm, oh yeah, the vlog, yeah, so that's one more idea. To be beaten around and into shape, while we drink our warm milk, trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with it, and just how to go about it...mmmm warm milk plus....OH! Erm, I think I'd best leave that there for now.

See you in the Future!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt