Wednesday, May 30, 2012

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
 

Friday, May 25, 2012

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
 

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Give Us Our Props VI

Greetings, Acting Fans, it's that time of week again and we're still getting ourselves organised for the rest of the series shoot, Post-West Yorkshire Premiere that is (The audience verdict: actually not terrible).
As we mentioned earlier besides running through the next scenes (& filming & editing a brief Premiere-only intro) we were going to take on a bit more prop making to try get one of our more complicated doodads finished, at least in the major construction phase. Before you you can see the fruits of our labour:


Y
es, major construction on the [SPOILER] has been completed, though of course we're remaining cagey on it's function, any of you as old and haggard as us here at H&H Productions may have an inkling what it's function is. Particularly if you have a fondness for 'sticky-back plastic'. It's not yet fully complete, mind you, it still requires a few touches or retouches on the decoration front.
We still await with baited breath a reply from Valve but so far nothing (which, as the saying goes, may be good news.
Stay tuned for Fridays Blog post, as despite the lack of filming we do have something to submit for your approval.

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Friday, May 18, 2012

Permission Slip-Up

Greetings, Acting Fans, the weekend rapidly approaches and with it the exclusive West Yorkshire Specially-vacced-but-not-Red-Carpet Premiere. We've managed to prepare a little extra for the event but earlier this week something else came to our attention.
We have used a small sample of an instrumental version of the song 'Still Alive' by Jonathan Coulton in our first full trailer 'Crimestoppers' a song familiar to any of you Portal gamers out there. On the assumption that the artist-accrediting link that can be seen in many Youtube video descriptions (including 'To-Buy' links) of late was a function we could implement at our end, thus allowing us to properly accredit, link to a purchase link for the song and avoiding any copyright shenanigans/cease-&-desisting at a later date. However, after uploading the trailer, it has become evident to us that it is not the case and we realised we'd made a bit of an ass of ourselves with our assumption. So we got in contact with Jonathan by email and in his gracious reply he gave us a contact at Valve (the actual song rightsholders), who we have got in touch with to ask permission.
If permission is not forthcoming, never fear, we'll be uploading a new version of the Trailer without 'Still Alive' but we still have our fings crossed that Valve give us permission for it's brief use. In the meantime we'd like to see you into the weekend with another JoCo classic:


TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

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
 

Friday, May 11, 2012

Have You Seen These Men?

We sure hope so, 'cause otherwise you haven't been watching our teasers!
Hello, Acting Fans! Yep, it's Friday again and that means blog time (man, these weekends do come around quick) and, oh boy, do we have a treat instore for you today. What is it, I hear you cry? Well read on 
As promised on Wednesday's blog post, we have a treat for you today. We have taken time out of our busy rehearsals to bring you the first FULL trailer and its live - right now!


We are ever marching onwards now and will be starting to film the rest of the series soon, so sit back,  get your self a cuppa and a biscuit, fire up the YouTube, press play and enjoy. Feel free to spread the H&H love across the internets and please don't forget to give us the old thumbs up.

Until next time, Acting Fans

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

When Is A Door

Greetings, Acting Fans, hope you've had a good Bank Holiday Weekend. We've had a bit of the usual social whirl ourselves, as well as learning our lines for the next shooting sequence of course. Keeping with tradition though we had a slightly DIY errand to do on Bank Holiday Monday.
One of our Props-under-construction has had components stored in two distinct-&-distant locations and so we decided it was about time to get the two parts together, ready for their merging into one. This was how Chris ended up as a temporary door-to-door door delivery man.

The Mystery Door
 Yep, The main body of the [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] is a common or garden BILLY bookshelf unit but for our purposes we needed to fabricate and attach a custom door. Obviously attaching one to the other is easier if they are in the same place but for the more heavy drilling/sawing/painting phase Chris's sister has kindly allowed us the use of her studio space, instead of obliterating Vern's flat with sawdust. With the start of filming though some of the practical prep has been on the back burner so now we're playing catch-up. High time we humped it to the flat, then.

Lastly but not leastly there is another big surprise awaiting you this coming Friday. Yes, It's time for some more cryptic clues and words. Be prepared for something of a portait of H&H as, well, themselves really and see them caught in the act(ing) of, well, something. But what is it, my beloved Blog Followers (looking at you Sweden & any of you Russkies that aren't hackers), that they are doing? Tune in on Friday and find out what it is. Has to been seen to believed and remember - don't have nightmares.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt
&
Christopher Haigh
 

Friday, May 4, 2012

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year...

Yes, Acting Fans, the wheels are still turning at H&H HQ but still prepping for launch so we thought we'd use today's post to celebrate the season of giving that is May. Now you may think 'May? Isn't that a little premature on the celebration front? I mean we're not long out of the last December!' but we're here today to talk about the OTHER season of giving. Yes, May 5th is the first Saturday of May so it's...


Yep, Free Comic Book Day. Check with your local comic shop to see if they're taking part, Our local Comic shop Proprietor (& location provider & Guest Star) Simon at Legacy Comics will be taking part. Doing his best to get newbies hooked on periodical four-colour fiction.
Even if you aren't fans of people in skin tight suits punching each other like myself and Vern, we urge you to pop in to yours - you never know what you might find (besides your usual big two (Marvel & DC comics) superheroes fare there's Atomic Robo, Finding Gossamer, Mouse Guard, to name a few*). We're set to meet with our colleague, Mr. Matt Birdsall, Esq. at this weekends extravaganza so hopefully we'll be taking stock on the equipment front (seeing if we can sort the issues with the DV camera with liberal application of a Cleaning Tape, or if more drastic action is required) and mapping out the next shooting schedule. Good Hunting.

TTFN

Christopher Haigh


*= Subject to availability, of course.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly


Hello, Acting fans, well it's that time again - Wednesday blog post day. What has been happening in the world of H&H, well, we are still rehearsing the next webisode scenes to be filmed. Trust us, this one is going to take some rehearsing. Hoo, boy!
We have also taken some photos to storyboard the shots for the same episode. Yep, we are all about the beavering away busy as bees but there's little to show for it yet. There's a lot of planning and pre-production the going in to each webisode of H&H, we said we should do more and we most definitely are, oh, and I've have also been busy writing a parody song that is to appear later on in the series. Listen out for that. So, yes, the wheel's still turning and we are keeping in motion. Keep 'em peeled...



TTFN

Vernon Harcourt