Be Careful What You Don't Wish For

Welcome Acting Fans and fellow bloggers and people of the world. It's FRIDAY!!!! (Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday, Friday, Friday) but this one is a 13th (Wooooo! Beware!) So what have we gone and done today, besides avoid abandoned summer camps and burly men in hockey masks? Well, once again we've got our meet up on and again this time not in the ol' coffee shop, not even in another coffee shop but back in the pub!!! Actually it was TWO pubs, well, we are drunken actors. I have to take some responsibility, it was me who suggested it this time.

After a bit of talking away, well, talking about films & stuff once again, the conversation worked it's way around to H&H-ish territory with the phrase "Jaws in SPACE!!!" being bandied about and that is all shall be said on that one for now. We got to the end of our drinks and Chris asked if I fancied changing pubs, as The Old Cock was busying up and knowing sometimes our lively conversations draw in odd folk, sometimes REALLY odd folk (& we're Actors we know odd).

He thought it might be good to move, to avoid getting minor hassled by some of the clientele while we were trying to sort stuff out. We'd gotten to thinking about the things we've filmed so far and reminiscing about the 'Grog' shoot in particular where, while in People's Park filming, a drunk bloke had started trying to get us into a conversation whilst we were trying to film and this lead us on to another idea for a H&H future Vlog, making a comedy version of the event. Seeing how it was getting busy I thought it wouldn't hurt to try another pub but...well, yep, you guessed it as soon as we got our drinks in and sat down outside we got hassled by this odd guy Chris vaguely knew (they'd crossed paths during a shift on his second job). Weird, eh?
Fortunately this odd fellow didn't hang around as long as the bloke in People's Park, so we managed to get back to more H&H business. Looking over what we got so far, which now amounts to about 8 ideas almost ready to go and an idea for a live show on the back burner. With all that in hand, well, I guess we best get one filmed, and on time for this month, too. Which we shall hopefully be doing some next week as, due to a quirk of shift, Chris is free all week long...and me? I'M FREE! *Wink*


Well, that's yer lot for now, see you in the Future!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

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

It’s CHRIIISTMAAAAS!!!

Hello, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers, welcome to the Wednesdays blog post the LAST BLOG POST OF 2012! Let me tell you what has been happing down at the H&H production HQ? Well, actually nothing, nowt, zip - yep, you heard that right, nothing.
Production has ceased for 2012 - pretty much out of necessity, what with Chris busy doing his day job at the theatre. It IS Panto season you know (OH, YES IT IS!) and I, well, I'm thinking you up stuff like when to schedule the start to the shooting again next year. And of course it's CHRISTMAS well soon - next Monday in fact (I'm pretty sure you knew that already though), so we have been winding production down to get ourselves ready for the festive things to begin. We even contemplated leaving series 1 at 4 episodes for 2012 at one point and continuing with episodes 5 & 6 in the New Year but, after putting our heads together and having a long discussion about it, we decided to give it a go a getting episode 5 done and, well, you saw the (pretty darn great, if I say so myself,) results last Friday and if you haven't yet here it is again:

So, yes, this will be the last blog post of this year too, I know you're all sad but don’t worry we WILL RETURN!! In the New Year and (eventually) with the last episode of Series One (and if I said 'Money' was a big one, wait until you see the Series One finale). So from both myself and Chris and Harcourt and Haigh, here at H&H HQ, we would like to say thank you for all of your support throughout the year and for watching and enjoy the series and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And we will see in the WORLD OF TOMORROW!!!

THANK YOU!!!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

&

Christopher Haigh

SEE YOU IN 2013!

  

Time Keeps Skipping

Hello, Acting Fans, it’s time for another blog post, whoa, these sure are coming around quick - is someone shrinking the weeks down? Accelerating the earth's rotation? Chuffing about with the basic fabric of spacetime? No? Well what is it, then? Eh? I ask you!
Anyway, as the lovely warm weather and sunshine melts your ice cream and most likely melts us in the full costumes during filming, we are still in the rehearsals of episodes and planning stage. I know, I know we’re been stuck in the rut for a while now but practise makes perfect right? Right? And that Sun isn't making things any easier. Curse you, Sun! My Arch-Nemesis!
We have another special surprise for you today though. Why, what is it? Well, I am proud to unveil the second trailer for 'Harcourt & Haigh: Actors at Large', folks, and I think you will like this one, so crank up the Tube of You and wrap your eyeballs around this slightly-over-one-minute wonder:

Well, that’s all we got time for this time, we've got loads more to do. Tally Ho!

TTFN

Just kidding, we do have a little something more up our sleeves - as a special treat keep your eyes peeled on the Actors At Large Youtube channel for the second version of Trailer 2 that is most definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK as it contains ADULT CONTENT including VIOLENCE and REPREHENSIBLE BEHAVIOUR most definitely not suitable for Under 18s. This is why we will be especially uploading it after the 9PM Watershed - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

TTFN (Really, this time)

Vernon Harcourt

 

The Look

The Original Colossal Acting Talent

The Photo That Started It All

Welcome to the ‘HARCOURT & HAIGH: Actors At Large’ production blog, it’s all about the Booze, the High Adventure, the Violence…..Oh, and the acting. Erm, Sorry, I mean the ACTING! (*Holds hand up to the sky in dramatic gesture*)

So what exactly is HARCOURT & HAIGH?

Well, it’s an upcoming web-based comedy show about two drunk out-of-work actors who are trying to find that breakout job, or to just survive on a day to day basis and to keep themselves topped up with booze by any means necessary.

Trust me, you wouldn’t like them when they’re sober. 

But I’m getting ahead of my self, sorry, I do that. I am Vernon Harcourt, one half of the actors, writers, directors and co-creators of what will be ‘HARCOURT & HAIGH: Actors At Large’. Hi there. That's me on the left below.

My partner in crime is Christopher Haigh and it all started with this picture:

The whole idea for the series comes from a trip over to the Marsden Jazz Festival (at which we skillfully managed to avoid any Jazz) along with great photographer and buddy of ours, Matt Birdsall.

With a lack of very attractive people Matt was willing to settle for using the two of us for some shots and took the photo above of myself and Chris stood back to back.

Something about it got me thinking and from that pose the idea for the show grew, it also inspired the name of the show.

It was a few months later and on a drunken night out (What can I say? We’re Method) that I explained my premise of a Web-based series of comedy shorts to Chris and we fleshed out the characters and the idea in more detail - thus Harcourt & Haigh were born (So to speak).

Not being averse to media domination, we also entered a TV sitcom length pilot episode script in the BBC Writersroom 2010 competition.

Alas the BBC judges, Hm, lets just say we don’t know what they said...but they were wrong.

No, I really don’t want to dwell - I just think that they didn’t get it, or maybe it was just TOO funny for them. I mean ‘Two Pints Of Lager and A Packet of Crisps’? Need I say, er, write more?
What to do? Roll up our sleeves and get on with it. In the words of the late great Freddie Mercury "The Show must go on!" 

Now let’s fast forward to….actually, now and, a lot more of conversations later, we are at the stage of starting it up - we have some test shots for the costumes (courtesy of Matt),  a trailer in post and a long and interesting (metaphorical) road in front of us. So stay tuned for updates on the process of Harcourt & Haigh moving from our Brains to a screen near you!

 You all come back now. 

Vernon Harcourt