SURPRISE!

Welcome back everybody, yep, it's Wednesday and it's blog time! Well now, as you can see, we have been busy since last we wrote. And trust us nobody is more surprised than us! Chris had been busy organising the YouTube Channel trailer setup this weekend. First recording the narration on Sunday (with the help of post-night out throat from the Saturday before, for extra gruffness) and then, while he was messing about, er, I mean sorting out the start of the trailer on Monday, he realised we might be able to get it done with a lot less additional filming than we at first planned. He set off yesterday with his Test proof version in hand to show me which I watched, just laughed at it and said, yes. During the quick meet up yesterday, we filmed just one shot for it. One shot. Which we were able to do at H&H HQ, that plus a quick scan on the interwebs for some stock footage of 'EXPLODO!' and we got the trailer done!
And There it is ☝!

Now we were planning to film additional scenes that we scripted especially for it but I think the way Chris has put it together (with a clever bit of footage recycling) is much better and, well, flows better too with a short punchy runtime. In fact it might be more of an intro than, well, our current episode intro, which gives us something to think about (and work with) when it comes to the Season 2 episode Intro.

Getting the Channel trailer out of the way sooner than expected means we have time for more things on our plate. Yes, we plan on starting filming on the Halloween special later in the week on Thursday as that really need to get done. Then well it will be on to film at last the last episode of series 1.Fings crossed we can get the spare warm bodies!

That's it for now see you in the Future!

Vernon Harcourt

 

Buck Rogers

Greetings, Acting Fans, and welcome to your late, late update of H&H doings this week, thanks to an unfortunate Rota-based mistake on my part. Oopsie!
Anyway, back to H&H Beeswax. Though we haven't met again this week Vern and I are still chipping away at the next phase of H&H production namely the parallel production of a Youtube channel trailer and the upcoming Halloween Special. Besides tinkering away at the script we will also be cobbling together some appropriate images and I'll be off out on a minor bit of Prop Hunting, which will most likely be a Poundshop trawl.
Now you may be wondering about the post title and the bit of Feeder at the start. Well, as today's post is a little light on actual doings, I thought I'd pad it out with a bit of a nod to one of the inspirations for the format of the channel trailer we've come up with and, well, the Feeder's a bit misleading as the actual inspiration is more exactly this:

Now as a low-to-no budget production we don't have the cash for space shuttle footage or, indeed, picture-in-picture editing so we'll have to find a workaround, wish us luck!

Stay tuned for more actual happenings next week and...

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

The Horror...the Horror...

Hello, fellow bloggers, it's Wednesday again, so let's get you dosed with your regular shot of Vitamin H²! Now, after a looong week last week and after me & Chris met up to sort out some plans for the future of H&H, I thought it would be best to get on with writing some of these up. Especially the upcoming Halloween Special!

An unfilmed script, like a pumpkin ripe for the carving!

Armed with my trusty-if-slow PC and ready with the notes we made for it in hand, I did indeed do just that. It wasn't easy though, no sir! I wrote down the ideas we had thrashed out and tried to make what we had come up with into some sort of a workable script for us to film as we have just under two months in which to get it done. At first it really wasn't going too well, I didn't like too much of how it was working. I wasn't even sure if it was funny at all!
Despite my notes I had forgotten some of what we had said and trying to get the story into a working order was difficult too. I hadn't managed to get it finished when we met up at H&H HQ this Tuesday when me and Chris got together again. We talked about the Special and how lately we both realised that we'd managed to get a lot more done by this time last year and that maybe we'd let the difficulty of getting Episode 6 done get in the way of us doing more H&H stuff.
Chris encouraged me to finish off the script, even if I didn't like how it turned out, so that once we had it in hand we could give it a real going over until it did work. With that in mind I got it finished that Tuesday night and sent it off to Chris for some split & polish and, well, to add some things that I might have forgotten, misremembered and so forth.

Today Chris sent back his re-gigged and re-worked version (complete with the title we came up with on Tuesday and, no, I'm not telling you it - that would be [SPOILERS]! Tee hee!) to me. I gave it the once-over and it is looking a bit better now, definitely workable. After a readthrough, and maybe a tweak here & there, it should be ready to go, all we need to do then is find a place to film it!

That's all for now, folks, see you on Friday,

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Welcome, Acting Fans and fellow bloggers, yep, it's time for the Friday blog, so let me (your humble Entertainer and Raconteur, Vernon Harcourt) fill you in on the second bit of H&H Business that came up on Wednesday. As mentioned in Chris's blog post we met up and discussed a lot of things we needed to do. The first thing being the Channel Trailer, of course.

The other thing, besides planning out the channel trailer, that came up as we talked was that we both realised, what with the Summer Special going up just before we hit September and now we actually ARE in September, was the fact that a special celebratory time that requires another H&H Special was just around the corner. Yep, that most wonderful time of the year! That's right, HALLOWEEN! Heck, it's about a month away and we knew we had to get our skates on. After sitting for a time totally stumped with blank expressions, we eventually also managed to plan a very bare bones layout of the next Halloween Special (two in a row makes it a Tradition!). Well, when I say 'Layout' it was more like a flip chart of ideas (Wright & Pegg - style) except, as a low-to-no budget feature, we can't afford a flip chart so it was me writing as quick as I could with a notebook and pen. Like this:

Workin' it!

Once we were happy with the ideas and after a bit of tweaking here & there and laughing at some of the ideas, well, like we always do - the process has got to be a little fun itself, you know. I'm sometimes surprised we ever get any work done with all the laughter we have when writing but it actually does seem to help. Anyway, we hammered it into a sort-of shape which I shall be writing up into some sort of working script and then it will be on to do a readthough, source the props and film it so it can go out on Halloween! Simples! I would tell some of what it was about but, well, you know I can't do that, sorry!

Until next blog have a good time out there, I've got to get on - no rest for the wicked.
Wicked Cool, that is!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

It WAS A Very Good Year...

Ladies & Gentlemen of the Internets, Acting Fans of all stripes, it's Humpday once again and time to blog what's what at H&H HQ. As the Summer Special 'This One Time...at Buntings Camp' steadily accrues views to an impressive 19 so far, Vern and I have not been resting on our laurels. It's the end of Summer (BOOOOOOO!) and that means it's time for that seasonal shift I always get this time of year, which means this week we only get to meet up today. And meet we did, to Moot.
Yes, we got together at H&H HQ and realised all the work that lies ahead of us to keep H&H ticking over. Yes, yes, there is STILL Episode 6 to get sorted but never mind that! 2 more important things spring to mind. The first being that in the rush to get our regular Seasonal Special out in the correct season (just) one of the previous points of order got pushed aside.
Namely our Youtube Channel Welcome video got pushed back down the production schedule. Which is what we started with today. That is the reason we were immersing ourselves in History, via the relevant Wikipedia page. What has 1984 got to do with our channel intro? Well, it was a very good year for many reasons (unless you're George Orwell) but the REAL reason we've chosen to look into that year is [SPOILERS]! Let me just assure all of you out there that us two 70s babies aren't trying to re-date ourselves to stay down with the kids. Nope. All will be revealed.
After our impromptu History lesson we came to our second point of order of H&H business but that I'll leave to m'colleague Vernon Harcourt, who'll fill you in on Friday, so stay tuned, Internet Chums!

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