Winter Wonderland

Seasons Greetings, Acting Fans! Welcome to the last H&H blog of 2013 as Vernon and myself enter the spirit of the season and our very own Winter Wonderland, yes, a Winter Wonderland where we spend the Winter Wondering what exactly we do next in H&H. Of course, if you feel we've been good this year you could always give us the best pressies - by heading over to Youtube and giving us more views and likes! Especially our seasonally-apt vlogs right here:

Anyway, internet chums, keep yourselves warm with the thought that, despite our usual hiatus at this time of year, OUR thoughts will mostly be on what WE can do for YOU next year (apart from when we're too full of booze and/or food and/or both). We've already met up this week to do a little planning about the basic shape of what we'll get up to next year as well as a bit of brainstorming, yes, we even managed to figure out what happened in Bangkok (but we're still not going to talk about it for now, [SPOILERS] and all that)!
Now the weekend just before Christmas approaches (and, somehow, I find myself working every evening of it - bah, humbug) and as I said we'll be signing off on the blog until it's time to welcome you all to the world of tomorrow - or until we actually have something to tell you about H&H related, of course.
To all of you Acting Fans, Internet Chums and Fellow Bolognauts out there on the interwebs and beyond both of us here at H&H HQs wish you the very merriest of Christmases and a very Happy New Year (of course it'll be a Happy New Year - there'll be more H&H)! If you've been good we hope you get your Christmas wishes and if you haven't, well, we forgive you but do try to do better!
And, of course, don't forget after the Doctor Who Christmas Special, the Queen's Speech and any turkey tryptophan-based comas to get tuned back in to H&H for any updates. Happy Christmas to you all and to all a great time!

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

The Last Hellraiser

"He'll tear your stage apart!"

Ol' Blue Eyes is back...he may have been drinking...

Good day, Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and people of the internets, yep, it's the last Wednesday before Christmas and this our blog post and what have we been doing? Well first things is the 2nd Yule Vlog is live and a waiting for you to view. Observe.

However this blog is going to take a turn to a more serious (and sadder) note for a bit, as some of you no doubt by now would have read and heard early in the week, the actor Peter O'Toole passed away. The last of the great Hellraising actors of his time, and one of the characters from Acting History that have been a big influence on the characterisation of our own two felonious thespians. He was indeed a great actor with the rarest charisma and will be missed from the world of acting, the stage and screen shall seem a little dimmer now he has gone but he shall not be forgotton, as he leave us a legacy of great movies behind (apart from 'Supergirl' but he's even good in that AND we here at H&H Productions have a soft spot for Helen Slater, so just leave off, alright?) and some of the most amazing stories of his antics, and they are truly legendary and, well, just what you would expect of an actor dubbed 'hellraiser'.

The both of us here at H&H HQ send out our well-wishes to the family and friends of Peter O'Toole and he will be missed, thank you for all the great movies. To Peter O'Toole.

Well, that's all for now acting fans, will see you on Friday

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

I Do It To Myself

Though sometimes I get a little help.

Greetings, Acting Fans, another late missive on the H&H production blog from a tired co-creator and, frankly, spent editor. You see, despite me spending all of my only full day off this week editing the next part of our extra special seasonal vlog, m'learned colleague was kind enough to remind me it was MY turn to blog today. So nice of him to volunteer. Volunteer the information, that is. Thank you so very much, Vernon.
Yet I can't hold too much of a grudge against my fellow actor at large as ultimately it's my own fault. Yes, it was me who, whilst showering, suddenly had the phrase 'A cartridge and a late fee' pop into my head whilst musing on the upcoming season of good cheer. Bah, humbug. After staring at an all-too-blank blog screen wondering exactly what to write, I have fallen back on that old adage write what you know and this is it.

I know the first part came together all too easily. This part, not so much. To be honest, I'm thankful for some of the tricks I've learned in the progress of H&H otherwise Thursdays travails would have taken so much longer. After a day of wrestling with both shots and doubts I got a first cut done in time to run it past my colleague with some time for me to do more editing if necessary. Happen a good job too as on our mutual viewing it soon became apparent that, despite my rather ruthless approach to cutting, the first cut still needed more ruths removing from it. Back to the editing suite went I and, if I say so myself, did a great job of cutting it down to the quick. Showing no mercy, I got Part 2 down from an unwieldy 8.17 minutes to a sleek, sexy 6.29 minutes and done in one day - all it took me was a skipped lunch and innumerable cups of tea.
That's right, Acting Fans, the task was completed - so keep your beady little eyes peeled this Monday for Vlog#4 Part 2! That's all from H&H Productions and me this week - I'm off to write a letter to Father Christmas to ask him for a decent computer and editing software. No , not for me. For Vern, that'd be a great gift for me.

TTFN

Christopher Haigh

Christmas Presence

Welcome back, Acting Fans, people of the world wide webs and fellow bloggers. Yep, it's Wednesday blog again (at least this time I didn't forget)!

Just what have we been doing down here at the H&H HQ? Well, just in case you haven't seen it we put up the 4th actors vlog on Monday, yes, and video log number 4 has a very seasonal flavour, it's the 'Yule Log' and it is here, just under this text what you are reading right now for you to watch!

OK so you've watch it right? RIGHT!?! So what else have we been doing? Well, as we said in the big Friday post, we went o'er hill and dale to our sister town Huddersfield, where we were drawn from life, yes, live and in character and I can say it was a load of fun. For being sat still that is. Just a note to self: next time pick poses that don't hurt after a few minutes, as being stood in the same pose for up to 15 minutes can be a bit of a killer. Forget poses with your arms stretched, even 5 minutes can be bad - or maybe we need more exercise!

There's nothing to it...VOGUE!

On the following Sunday me and Chris did a quick meet-up to view the vlog that you have just watched and do a very quick pick up shot for the second part with a bit of additional dialogue recording. As always I am not going to tell you what the pick up was as it would, well, with an appearance by-
Whoops! Almost let the cat out of the bag there! Well that's most of it for now and I guess we'd best get back to it, and we shall see you on Friday!

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt

 

Christmas Wrapping

Welcome back Acting Fans, fellow bloggers and people of the internets to this erm...erm...what day is it? Oh, yeah - Friday blog! Yep, as some of you more eagle eyed fans of you might have seen that there wasn't a Wednesday blog and I bet you might be wondering what happened to that there post. Did we have a break down? Were we abduction by Aliens? Was there a computer melt down? An Acrimonious divorce? Well actually none of the above it was we a much boring reason I just plain old plum forgot about as we were very busy down at the H&H HQ.

What were we doing that made us forget this important update to the people of the world? Well acting fans we were very busy filming another video for the actors log. Now this has a special theme to it AND had lots for us to do  (so much for simple short and quick!) but in true H&H style we got on with all of the various shots in our short space of time. With only our wits about us (and our Xmas shopping list of props) and some idea of how it was going to be we managed to Ad Lib our way through!

With everything set up and went for it, and it was a fun day as we were flying by the seat of our (lounge) pants. And having a laugh and getting through this long sequence of events, as for this one there was no really script, we just had the list of the items that we at use and off we went.

Boy, did it takes use a few takes to get things right and we were only on the first item on list, yep, I kept on losing on what was the third line that I said. So after all of he laughs, fluffs, spittakes, cracking, cat herding and more laughs we got through to end and it was time to do some close-ups, which meant going back over the footage to see how and where things stuff was held so this time it would match up and defeat our old nemesis CONTINUITY (see we are learning)!

Then the rushes were rushed off to the edit suite (Chris's bedroom, natch) for Mr Haigh to edited it down into a watchable Vlog but more on that...sooon, so now you're all up to date on what's has been happing over here at the H&H HQ!

FOR REALSIES!!!

Oh, and as one final note me, myself and Chris are going over to Huddersfield tomorrow (7th December) to participate in a live life drawing session of Harcourt & Haigh at the Packhorse Gallery! Yes, that's right, no content with corrupting the Internets H&H are invading our reality as well! So we shall be immortalised in the medium of drawing and maybe put up in a gallery for all the world to see. Well, for a few weeks anyways.

That is all for now, I did say it has been a busy week.

TTFN

Vernon Harcourt