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

 

Black To Black

Welcome back, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers, yep, it's Friday and it's blog time again and this week we have actually done something practical relating to H&H. Yep, I know, a shocker compared to our recent posts! ;-) We met up for a second time this week to go out and do a test of one of the moving shots I have conceived of for Episode 6. It's a shot sequence that will start at black move across the gangs then back to black. For our start and end in black we used a fairly heavy grade black card that Chris already had (Low-to-No budget, remember) which he would hold while I filmed with our camera. It took a bit of practice, and will probably need a bit more too, but it worked. We tried a number of different ways and what seemed to work best was if the card was held in a curve so that it also 'hooded' the camera, stopping light reflecting from the surface of the card itself and creating a darker black in front of the camera. We will hopefully be using this technique to show intercut shots all of the acting 'gangs' in what will appear to be a continuous shot.

If we can get this shot right, it will lend a very movie look like. We also talked further about the shooting schedule and the difficulties of it, especially due to the summer nights getting darker so late it might just take a bit longer than we thought. Taking this weekend in particular we were hoping to get a short 'gang' sequence done but the lateness of the hour has put off the majority of the folks we were hoping to get together for it and, unfortunately, we can't do it without them. This has led us back to thinking about widening our reach for additional cast so we may be looking wider than our immediate circle of friends and family to get the extra bodies we need - time to get begging to those drama course students! We still do have some other things to sort out for the episode to keep busy on, but don't panic, Actings Fans, progress is looking like it might slow again but we will get there with this episode!

Well that's all for now,

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Pick-me-Up

Pick ups, never forget about them.

Hello, Acting Fans, and a big 'HELLO!' to everyone overseas that reads/views, yes, looking you in Sweden, the USA and rest of you out there in the big wide world (We're shouting it louder in case you don't speak English because, well, that's what we do when we're abroad anyway). And BIG 'thank you' to you all as well!
Right, back to it and on with the blog, well, what have we done this week, folks? This week we could only get our familially-entangled cameraman over for one day this week (yep, it’s starting to become awkward as Chris and I itch to get on with the rest of the series - the perils of the zero budget filmmaker, dontchaknow) so we unfortunately couldn’t do the full intended shoot that we were planning to do (*Sigh*). We did manage a pickup shoot for the end of the [SPOILERS] Additional Scene footage (Come on, you didn’t think is was going to tell you exactly what it was, did you?). Here's a hint:

During the course of the day, a breakdown in communication led to confusement of where we were suppose to be meeting up (so the day in itself was a bit of a Comedy - of Errors, shame we didn't get to film them), though besides getting the Pickup we got into discussion of some more planning of what's next, so the time wasn't totally wasted. We will be getting on with the next webisode soon, thanks to Mr. Birdsall's generous loan of his DV camera, and be sorting out some more Additional Scene footage hopefully next week. As Ol' Churchill (the Prime Minister, not the Insurance Dog) used to say: "KBO!"

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

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

 

Inaction But Still In Action

Hello, Acting Fans, here we are with the lastest what-what on exactly what has been occurring in the world of H&H Productions. Bad news, everybody, we were counting on filming this week but at the moment our handy cameramanperson is unfortunately unavailable so we will be doing some more rehearsing as this episode really, really needs it. We will also be taking the filming downtime to finishing off some prop builds for the show. (One of which has been in the process of being built for a while now but the door was afar, yes, I said 'afar'.)

Then we have the West Yorkshire Premiere of the Pilot Episode, an especially vacced-but-not-Red Carpet event for friends and family at the weekend as they have put up with me and Chris going on and on and on (and on) about it for ages now (and in my Flatmates' case they've even had to put up with me using our home as a main set). For nigh on, well, about two-ish years I think it is by now. Time to let them see exactly what we've been up to.

We will see you on and Friday and we maybe might just tell you about this thing-what-we-are-building that has taken an age to make.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Location, Location

Welcome to the Pressure Cooker, as series filming draws nearer and nearer we scrabble to get things together for shooting (but that's another post).
In hand we have the Costume Test Shoot, a couple of Promos in the Can and a 'Behind the Scenes' short, in front of us - everything else.
Today, however, we would like to take the time to say, 'Thank you'. Filming somewhere that belongs to someone else is a privilege not a right and we are extremely grateful (to the Max!) to the providers of our first two locations.

Simon Shaw...AKA Proprietor X (Formerly Weapon HX)

Location number 1 for the 1st Promo is favourite local haunt The Piece Hall, specifically the shop of our chum (and Promo Co-Star) Simon Shaw: Legacy Comics.
Many thanks to Simon for letting us behave in a criminal fashion in his work environs (and, as we promised Simon, we only partially destroyed it).
Despite our shenanigans Legacy Comics is still open for business supplying your favourite Four-Colour Gentlemen's (or discerning Ladies') Relish.
In fact if you're in the West Yorkshire area and like a bit of Cosplay (dressing up to you and me) be sure to check out Legacy's annual Halloween Havoc competition.

"Now witness the power of this fully STOCKED and OPERATIONAL Comic Shop!"

We'd also like to thank Steve & the rest of the crew of Halifax Kitchen Company Limited for supplying the Location of Promo No.2 by permitting two strange blokes who walked in off the street (and a couple of chums) use of one of their display kitchens to double for [!!!REDACTED FOR SPOILERS!!!]. Thanks to all of you there, the offer of cups of tea, though refused, was greatly appreciated. In fact our learned colleague Matt even asked us what we "had on you" (don't worry the negatives are in the post).

Halifax Kitchen Company Limited

Our appreciation knows no bounds but we must press on, we've got Props to make and Scenes to Take.

TTFN.

Christopher Haigh