Anatomy Of A Puppet

Greetings, Acting Fans & Blogonauts, and welcome to your regular Wednesday update from here at H&H HQ!
Chris here and while we're still in the slow phase of gradual planning, to use a bit of a train metaphor we're still getting the boiler up to steam, I thought I'd take the time for a brief musing on what goes in to getting the episodes made. You see I've got a bit of a background in Art, education wise - My degree was in Art & Design - but I haven't been what I'd consider a proper practicing artist in a while. That's where 'H&H: Actors at Large' has been a bit of a boon. One of the things I've really enjoyed is getting to exercise creative muscles I haven't used to their full capacity for a while by dreaming up some of the ideas we have for the series and then having to make them into 'real' objects. More on that at another time, I think though.
Another pleasure is having to teach myself how to do new things out of necessity for the series, like muddling my way through Audacity to sort out some sound issues for 'The Experiment' episode (darn that traffic - see 'Behind The Acting: Outtakes). It just so happens that the Series 1 Finale, the upcoming Episode 6: 'Anabasis' is going to require a bit of both and that's one of the things I'm looking into at the moment.

Source:garyhausplayers

Yep, I'm going to need to make a puppet! Or possibly more than one. That's where having a sister who runs her own Puppet Street Theatre Company might come in handy, eh. WHY exactly do I need to make a puppet? Well that would be [SPOILERS], so you'll just have to wait and see...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Brainstorm!

Hello, Acting Fans, we're BACK! Well it's Friday so what’s been happening in the office of H&H Productions. Well, I’ll be your captain, come follow me through my words.

First thing first is that since our catastrophic technical failure what have taken some time to take stock of what we have done so far with this production, and if you've been keeping up with the blog you should know but if not, tut tut, you bad people, you *Wags finger*.
Well, we have had our ups and downs but mainly ups though, as shown by the five trailers we've managed to get up on the H&H YouTube channel. We have some of the stock footage done and in the can, now I know what you thinking, the stock footage should be done by the second unit. And yes you’d be right on that is one of their jobs but, well, we can’t afford to have a second unit, that and we are only two guys filming, sometimes three if we're lucky and on one sequence a whole 6 people (Woo!). I mean we are a Lo-to-No-budget series. We are ALL the Units! The pilot episode is done and is now ready and waiting to go live which will be soon, dear Acting Fans, sooooooon (Date TBA).

And moving on to the present, after having a very long and quite intense rehearsal, I think we are ready to start to film the next episode. Trust me, when you see this episode, you’ll understand why it took some much rehearsing. (Or maybe not if we do it right) And, as always, when I and my fellow actor/co-creator get together we always end up thinking up and adding new ideas to the mix of the episodes. Making some of the sequences a bit longer if needed, tweaking the dialogue here and there and making them a bit more funny (Trust me I always know it’s gonna be good when Chris takes ages to tell me from laughing).
So the next for us to do get our thinking caps on for brainstorming what we do next:
How should we source another camera to replace the broken down one? When do we get on and film the next episode? We'll also start the planning and rehearsing the next next episode to be filmed, see if what we wrote does in fact work and what needs to be changed if it doesn't. And get on with the storyboards, too. Much thinking will ensue.

Wow, is that the time? I’d best get back to it, see you...in the Future!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

Runthrough

Greetings, Acting Fans! Once again Blog day rolls around, what? Already? Sometimes it really does feel like we're travelling at 67,000 miles per hour, so this is going to be a bit of a quick one.
Since the completion of the Pilot we've had a mini-test-screening and, so far so good, the Test Subjects* all appear to be laughing in the right places. The most recent gatherings of H&H Productions have been focused on planning the next phase of the series, Episodes 1-to-6B. Happy with the 10 minute total runtime established by the Pilot, we have done some minor retooling on the episode scripts, as when initially conceived we were estimating between 5-to-7 minutes an episode. This has also given us the option of re-introducing, or re-integrating in differently, additional scene ideas that we had originally not thought possible, yay!
This Monday saw us gathered Chez Vern to do a line run, dialogue tweak and basic runthrough on the next episode scenes to be shot and they're dialogue heavy so we're going to need all the practice we can get!
Unfortunately the next time our schedules coincide will be this weekend sometime so we're hoping to put all three H&H Productions heads together to hammer out the actual shooting schedules but, don't worry, there'll still be a little sumthin' sumthin' this Friday.
In the meantime, if you haven't already, why not drop by Channel H check out the decor and the first teaser promo - please take your shoes of before entering or, at least, wipe your feet first.

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

*= No Animals were harmed during the testing of this web series, cajoled & threatened, yes, but not actually harmed

Far Afield

With the main body of the pilot's footage completed there is still a little something else yet to do, and it relates to our previous difficulties some.
Due to a TOTAL LACK OF ANY COMMUNICATION AT ALL WHATSOEVER (THANK YOU SO MUCH) from large-business-in-Halifax-that-shall-remain-nameless who lease the top levels of the Car Park that was our first choice for the location for certain scenes, we have to go out of Halifax to do some filming tomorrow. That means...
Yep, ROAD TRIP!

"One small step for man. one giant leap for Halifaxkind."

We are off to the far away mysterious place of...*Ahem* Huddersfield. To film two scenes, yes, you read that right, TWO specific scenes that are not episode-specific so much as they are of a format we have conceived of which is going to form a sort of intro bumper to the episodes. With the modification of the pilot script by creating an additional first act, we have reconsidered which of these is most suited for the pilot and, wouldn't you know it, it's one that we haven't filmed yet. Oh, well.

Of course we are going to use all our well-honed Rules of Guerrilla Filmmaking to make this happen, so lets hope they work.

And it will not end there, we will be straight back into editing room (A.K.A Chris’s Bedroom) to put it all together. Then it’s on with the planning of the next episode and on to getting that next something that’s gonna happen, well, happened. Trust me, it will happen and soon.

So long for now acting fans,


TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

Special Delivery

Well, Folks, It's that special time of year when nights have drawn in, the stars align and where we contemplate the sacrifice, the wonders and the miracles that have been, as well as those that have yet to come. The celebration of an entrance into the world, an unusual birth. What?! Christmas? Nooooo!

Aww, Isn't it cute? 8 Gigs of Acting Prowess!

We've got our footage together!

And we're ready to get editing a rough cut of the first episode! Now bear in mind there'll be a lot of re-shooting yet and this rough cut will be for-our-eyes-only as we figure out which shots to change, where we need new composition and what we've missed. Over the festive season we'll be beavering away behind the scenes (and between the festivities) and hopefully (fings crossed) we may have something to show you over the yuletide season/early new year.

Until then we've got someone in to take care of our Precious Cargo:

 

 

Thanks, Goku!

TTFN,

Vernon Harcourt
&

Christopher Haigh

Learning Curve

They say the it's possible to profit from calamity, so here at H&H Productions we're hoping to put calamity to good use - we're good at calamity (not so good with profit so far, though). We're on a learning curve here and what we've learned thus far is:
We need to learn more.
What better way is there to learn than by doing and what we have done is look back at our filming so far and then realised what we haven't done, not enough rehearsing, not enough shot planning and not enough storyboarding.
We also experimented with the use of ambient natural light on the first shoot for a 'grim-up-'North' ambiance, this has proved, however, that it's TOO 'grim up 'North' (for shooting indoors at this time of year that is).
A plan of Action is required and that's exactly what we've got:

1. More rehearsing
2. More Storyboarding
3. Reshoot the Flat footage, with lighting, after rehearsing.
4. Keep learning
5. Get on with it

So we may be abandoning the first flat-shot footage but it hasn't been a waste, we've learned. In that senses we guess we've already profited from calamity. Now to get down to profiting from success!

Stay tuned, Acting Fans.

All The Best,

Vernon Harcourt

&

Christopher Haigh