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

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

 

Back In The Game

Welcome back fellow bloggers and ActingFfans yep its Friday so it’s blog time. So what has been happening since mine and Chris’s meet up, well actually nothing really. I bet your wondering why there is even a blog? Well, just sit right there and I’ll tell you...hold on to your hats folks! I've managed to re-join the Rat Race!

It’s more of a personal blog this week, I have been seeking, looking, searching and applying for work for a looong past four years without any luck. I have been applying job after job after job and no one seemed to get back to me. I've taken the odd temporary post and or seasonal work, even doing some volunteer work lately but still a steady job has remained out of reach!

Well, that is until this week. Yes, internet chums, I am now once again going to be an employed man within a company in Halifax (No, not the HALIFAX, after all we still bear a grudge! Flippin' location shenanigans) And I'm sooo pleased about this WOO HOO! Oh, yeah at last, but of course H&H will not stop - we are still steaming ahead with the next episode and it will be done, oh yes, it will be done. So swears Vernon Harcourt - productive member of society AND Actor At Large!

Well that’s it for today folks and we will speak to you soon



TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

The Kindness Of Strangers

It's Friday blog time once again, Acting Fans. Today we'd like to take a moment to celebrate the milk of human kindness. We've been very lucky so far with the help of friends, family and others assisting us in the making of Harcourt & Haigh and we are grateful to them all but it's a very special thing to get help from complete strangers. Folk like the staff at Halifax Kitchens and Th'Cat I'th Well didn't have to let us use their space but they did and they did it for nothing, so thank you all so very much.
This week I got a reminder of how lucky we've been so far in the form of even more help from a new set of strangers. I'm currently trying to source materials for the puppet that I need to construct and realised I could do with some foam. I wasn't sure where to start to be honest, so I asked my sister if she had any ideas. Beka and my parents pointed me in the direction of local upholsterers. Genius.
The first call I made went a little like this:

"Hello, My name is Chris Haigh. I'm involved in a low to no budget creative project where I need to make a puppet and I was wondering if you might have any offcuts of foam I could get my hands on?"

"Well, You'd have to look in the waste bin and sort any foam from the fabric we also put in there."

"That would be fine. It'll probably be next week when I'm able to get there, when is the best time to turn up?"

"Just give us a call to make sure we're not out on a delivery."

Yes, Acting Fans, it's looking like I may have gotten exactly what we need with only ONE PHONE CALL?! All thanks to the lovely folks at Windsor Beds & Upholstery. Sometimes, just sometimes, people are AWESOME!

That's it for this week everyone, remember to ask nicely and you just might get!

Be Excellent to each other!

TTFN

 Christopher Haigh

It Lives, IT LIIIIIIVES!!

Welcome back, bloggers and Acting Fans. Well, I am BACK, the Big Tease has returned to ride the keyboard once again MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
I survived the apocalyptic disaster of my PC breaking down. God rest her electric soul, she'd served me well - speed on the wings of a calculator to android heaven, my dear. I now have a new machine. Better, stronger, faster, oh, alright, cheap & affordable - so then let's get to it!

What’s has happened since the last time Chris talked to you (besides my computational woes)?
Well, we wrapped up shooting on the first episode last week and yesterday we went in to the editing room (as you may recall, AKA Chris’s bedroom. Note: To potential Slash-fictioners, there was no funny business - apart from the creation of a work of Comic Genius®, that is) and I am very pleased to say we now have two episodes pretty much completed. With just some additional sound effects for the first episode to go but once they are in, it's ready to go! (OH, yeah! Groovy!)

Getting ahead in filmmaking

But we did have one small problem when we were editing and that was with one of the 'Previously on Harcourt & Haigh' sequences which we filmed waaaay back in March.
We had the raw footage but we had experimented with separately-recorded sound, due to the camera we were using being a compact digital one with great video but sadly no Mic Socket (this was during our period of video camera uncertainty) and a lot of ambient noise, because of this some of the sound needed syncing up. Unfortunately somehow not all of the shots and/or sound files we thought we had were there, perhaps a lack of coverage on our part or the files may be lost in the shuffle, filed 'safely' somewhere in the recesses of Chris's hard drive.
We did, however, have a section of some of the line takes edited together with sound synced up thanks to Matt. With a bit of clever editing and syncing up some dialogue from the synced edit with shots from other takes we did in fact manage to make it work. (Yeah! Go us! We are like some kind of, I dunno, editors or something, we are.)

He's back...and this time, it's personal!

So in three single-day sessions we have filmed and edited an episode, we are indeed rocking on with this series. With a lot of luck, and a little bit of energon, they should be live soon. Well, once we cut together a new Intro sequence that is.

There we go, Acting Fans and bloggers, that's it for now so, as always, keep them home fire’s burning until the next time we meet up.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Victory!

One down, only 7 to go.

Yes, Acting fans it's been a BIG weekend for us down at the Harcourt & Haigh productions studio (with us only stopping once for our tea). We have finally done it, oh yes, it has been done at last, Mwhahahahahahah! What is it that has been done? The Pilot! The pilot is done, completed, altogether, finito, finis, in the can, it’s a W-R-A-P folks. Oh yeah! Groo-OO-oovy.

And the wait and the work has been worth it, no reshoots required, as me and my learned colleague both like it (or at least like it enough that we are willing to keep our hands off it now - otherwise we could be tweaking it forever!). Now we have also started to plan out the next episode too. (Go us!)

Now back on to that something BIG again, yes, I know what you're thinking, isn't the something BIG the pilot being done? Nope, my fellow Acting fans, it is not. Well, what is it, the something BIG that is, if not that?
It’s that on this Friday, the 20th of April, something, something, something, will happen - No foolin'. Something BIG. The Countdown clock is ticking. Tee hee. Tune in then to find out what. Oooh, I'm such a tease! Bad Vern!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt