Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Dec 1, 2011, 10:11 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) This is the 100th and final production tip in the making of our low budget film Ambleton Delight. One question we have often been asked is, should I go to film school? Those in our production team have been to a film school of some sort. Itsuka Yamasaki and Sinead Fer...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 21, 2011, 7:52 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) As cast and crew we are all very proud of the film we produced. Not only the way it was made and for how little, but the final product is something we are very satisfied with, as in many cases it has exceeded expectations. However, that doesn't mean it couldn't have...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 15, 2011, 2:44 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) It is a disturbing aspect of being a filmmaker, but unfortunately the not-so-simple act of making a film will automatically put you in line for possible abuse, either directly, or more likely indirectly, (as with website 'trolls'). You may also think that this would m...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 1, 2011, 7:42 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) It is one of the most common complaints -not knowing what is happening. Not knowing when and where the filming will be, not knowing what is expected, not knowing how long it will take, not knowing what has happened to the film.... As filmmakers we are creating an ar...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 28, 2011, 10:15 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) It is a classic Hollywood horror story that has almost taken on mythical proportions in its retelling. Someone writes a great script and submits it to a studio. The studio replies that they are not interested. A year or so later the studio releases a film almost id...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 25, 2011, 8:44 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) All feature films, short films and trailers which are shown theatrically must be classified in the UK and most other countries have similar systems in place. Classification is also a legal requirement if you are selling your DVDs. The only exemption you might be able...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 21, 2011, 5:29 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Carrying on from the earlier blogs regarding designing the film logo and poster and especially if you are looking at the option of self-distribution, you will need to look at designing and creating a DVD "wrap" and "on-body". One important thing to remember is that a...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 17, 2011, 6:53 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Distribution - when your film is released commercially to the public either theatrically or for home viewing via DVDs, VOD or TV broadcast - is probably the most asked question we have received and also one of the most difficult to answer, even though we did end up ge...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 11, 2011, 5:08 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Of course, once your film is done and dusted the next thing you most urgently want to do is to get it out there, and maybe even pick up some awards in the process! This is when filmmakers begin searching for festivals to enter, from Cannes to the small local festival...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 7, 2011, 7:25 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) It can be both a very happy and very stressful time for a filmmaker - that moment when the curtain is finally lifted on the film you have been slaving over for months and it is finally seen by an audience for the first time. The date for the Ambleton Delight premiere ...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Oct 4, 2011, 5:06 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) As filmmakers sometimes we get too close to the film to be able to be objective about whether things are really working or not. In the previous blog we looked at how some films can have various cuts as director's attempt to rectify issues. We also listed some critic...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 30, 2011, 5:32 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) The word 'cut' is used during editing and distribution to refer to different versions of the film. Sometimes a film can have many different 'cuts' - Blade Runner famously has seven different versions of the film, including an "International Cut", the "Director's Cut"...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 27, 2011, 10:02 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) It is the easiest mistake in the book, and we fell into it big time - allowing a copyrighted logo, brand or artwork to appear without permission. In our case it was a scene involving a father-and-son bonding moment, during the filming of which all our energies were f...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 23, 2011, 9:59 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Film making can be an costly exercise, but that doesn't mean everything has to be expensive. Seeing that this is our 100th post to celebrate we are listing 12 of what we think are worth having as part of your arsenal. Click the image to go to the official website: 1....
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 20, 2011, 8:40 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Social networking, a new inexpensive means of promoting your film, has seemingly become an important part of any marketing strategy. Kevin Smith famously used MySpace in 2006 to promote his Clerks II by putting the names of the film’s first 10,000 MySpace friends in...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 16, 2011, 6:14 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Setting up your own official film website, such as we did (www.ambletondelight.co.uk) does not need to be a difficult and expensive option these days. Not only does it mean you have your own place on the web that you can advertise on your film trailers and posters, b...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 13, 2011, 7:56 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Up until the 1970s most films would begin with the full cast and crew credits list. Now, the full list almost always run as a long scroll at the end of the film. These opening or closing credits should not be underestimated -not only are they an informative and in ma...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 9, 2011, 9:04 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Film trailers have become an artform in themselves, with slick editing, dramatic music and flashy 3D graphics, along with a barrage of impressive imagery and a complete retelling of all major plot points. But the power of a good film trailer should not be underestimat...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 6, 2011, 7:21 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Once you have your basic film title logo sorted (refer to previous blog) then the next natural progression is to develop this into a film poster. It is good to do this as early on in the production as it can create a sense of unity and focus for production design. Bu...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Sep 2, 2011, 8:30 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Creating a film logo is an important aspect of the branding and marketing of any film. Once the name of the film has been established beyond a working title then selecting a suitable font and look is important, as this may dictate such things as the look ...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Aug 30, 2011, 2:40 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Subtitling your film might seem an unnecessary or even an indulgent option. However, if you are considering overseas festivals you might be asked to provide the English subtitles for translation, or having hard-of-hearing subtitle options may open the film up t...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Aug 26, 2011, 9:27 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Although not (yet) commercially released in the Blu-ray format, Ambleton Delight was mastered in HD and hence we created a Blu-ray master first, before down-converting it to DVD. This is something we recommend all filmmakers do, as not only will it look great on...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Aug 23, 2011, 6:02 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Formats can become a complicated issue in film production. Even when presented with opportunities to simplify and standardise formats (such as with the invention of DVDs and then HD) instead further complications were introduced. There are some good reasons fo...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Aug 13, 2011, 6:27 am
We are pleased to announce that the award-winning UK indie film Ambleton Delight can now be watched on-line via VOD (Video-On-Demand). It costs only USD 1.99 for 3 days access, with payment via PayPal or Amazon. Click the link below to find out more:
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Aug 4, 2011, 4:30 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Once you have your official DVD master, you will then need to look at how to get copies made. You have three basic options available: 1. Personal or small run copies As mentioned in the previous blog, rather than burning straight to DVD I recommend burning an image f...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jul 26, 2011, 6:32 am
By Dan Parkes (Director/editor) Once your film is "locked" or at least almost finished you will no doubt be looking at providing it in some form -for the premiere, for preview, or possibly for sale. And this will most likely be either as a DVD or a Blu-ray disc. The first cuts of Ambleton Delight w...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jul 4, 2011, 4:43 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) It has become a reasonably recent phenomena: the indepth audio commentary with cast and crew explaining as you watch the film how and what went into making it. Apparantly the very first audio commentary was on the 1984 laserdisc version of the original "King Kong" movie, wi...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jun 22, 2011, 7:57 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) Recording and mastering 5.1 surround sound has until recently been the domain of big budget studios. However many relatively inexpensive audio software packages allow for multi-channel mixing and there was for many years a frustrating gulf between the ability to mix 5.1 and...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jun 19, 2011, 12:27 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) "In a world...." We are now all familiar with the seemingly ubiquitous deep film trailer voice that sounds like he has smoked a hundred cigarettes a day... (epitomised by the legendary late "Don" LaFontaine -picture left- who never smoked!). But that deep, crisp and velvet l...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jun 14, 2011, 10:13 am
By Dan Parkes (Director) ADR stands for "Automated Dialogue Replacement" and is the dubbing or re-recording of dialogue during post-production. Apparently in the UK it is called "post-synchronisation" or "post-sync". This process is normally required due to technical issues such as poor on-location...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jun 11, 2011, 4:48 am
By Dan Parkes (Director) The impact of sound on a film should never be underestimated. Often clever and appropriate use of sound effects can really sell a shot, help with continuity and make visual effects come to life. For Ambleton Delight, it was initially mixed using Logic on a MacBook. The fin...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jun 6, 2011, 6:00 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) Colour grading or timing is the art of enhancing, correcting or sometimes completely changing the colour and look of a film. In our case a very simple colour pallete had already been decided upon by the production designer before we started filming. The plan was for the gri...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - May 10, 2011, 9:38 am
By Dan Parkes (Director) In the previous blog we looked at the benefits of having a tailor-made score rather than production library material. But what kind of workflow can be used when getting a score written by a composer? Here are some things that worked for us: 1. Communication Of course, it i...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Apr 18, 2011, 5:50 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) While there is some very good production library material to choose from, absolutely nothing beats having a composer write music that is tailored to your film. Here are some reasons why: 1. Emotion A favourite expression of mine is that 'music is shorthand in emotion.' Whi...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Apr 7, 2011, 3:14 pm
(Interview with musicians Phil and Joe Gooch) Rather than the tedious and expensive method of trying to licence a famous music track for your film, why not look at using the just as good (and sometimes better) music from the many relatively unknown solo artists and bands out there. All you need to ...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Mar 31, 2011, 7:41 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) 'Less is more' as they say and this can very true when it comes to visual effects. If you don't notice the effect, then it has served it's purpose. Ambleton Delight surprisingly contains many visual effects, from town name replacements and logo removals, to day-for-night s...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Mar 22, 2011, 4:29 pm
By Itsuka Yamasaki (Producer) It is important to realise that you cannot just use any music from whatever source without permission. The music must be either written for, or cleared (licenced) for your film. We would like to suggest some possible routes you could take to source music for your fil...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Feb 21, 2011, 8:10 am
By Dan Parkes (Editor/director) In the previous blog we looked at the importance of establishing a workflow. Organisation is certainly one of the most important qualities an editor must have -along with a large dose of patience! Here are some other valuable and practical tools and techniques when ...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Feb 8, 2011, 5:54 pm
By Dan Parkes (Editor/Director) Good organisation is key to any editing project, especially when you are dealing with a film that will be at least 90 minutes and over 20 hours of HD footage has been shot for it! So we very early on devised a workflow that would ensure we could achieve this, even tho...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Feb 1, 2011, 10:48 am
By Dan Parkes (Director) Film making can be a creative and at times very exciting process. However, such is not possible without the all important paperwork that goes behind it. I know what you are thinking, this sounds all rather boring. But like a lot of things in life, sometimes it requires th...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jan 25, 2011, 11:23 am
By Dan Parkes (Director) When we began work on Ambleton Delight we soon realised it was ambitious enough to warrant some form of documentation (...a feature film with a named actor, dozens of locations and speaking roles, from pre-to-post in 9 months and on less than £6000...?). However the busy ...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jan 18, 2011, 8:22 am
By Daniel Parkes (Director) Not long ago film sets had a "continuity girl". This term has been replaced with the more politically correct "script supervisor" a job that entails more than just continuity. But that should not undermine the importance of continuity. Since most films are shot out of...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Jan 10, 2011, 8:06 am
By Itsuka Yamasaki (Producer/writer) An extra is someone who appears in a film in a nonspeaking or nonperforming capacity normally in the background and hence also known as background actors or background performers, background artists or simply background.The easiest and proper way to find extras i...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Dec 30, 2010, 7:55 am
(Interview with 'Ambleton Delight' cast member Andrew Elias) Following on from our interview with leading actor Jos Lawton, we have asked supporting actor Andrew Elias, who provided a memorable performance as Town Clerk Colin Wilkinson along side the Mayor played by Brian Capron, regarding practical...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Dec 22, 2010, 7:18 am
(By Dan Parkes, Director) As mentioned in the previous post, night shoots are never easy, so it is sometimes more practical to film day-for-night. By means of camera settings and filters and then some post-production colour correction you can take a shot filmed during the day and turn it into night...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Dec 13, 2010, 1:25 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) Even for those who consider themselves 'night owls', filming at night is never easy and poses numerous challenges. But before we look at surviving night shoots, let's establish two key reasons for doing so, which are: 1. Filming an exterior night scene at night 2. Filming i...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 29, 2010, 11:05 am
By Dan Parkes (Director) If you are a filmmaker chances are, at some point, you will come across a "prima donna" actor. Although a small minority of the acting community, due to their personality the probability of encountering them is in fact higher. For a low budget filmmaker it can be severely d...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 19, 2010, 5:00 am
(An interview with actor Jos Lawton) In part two of an interview with Jos Lawton, who won a Best Actor award (International Filmmaker Festival, 2009) for his role as John Miller in Ambleton Delight, we explore reasons for becoming an actor and some general acting tips. What advice would you offer th...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 15, 2010, 3:49 am
An interview with Jos Lawton (actor) In a two part special we interview lead actor Jos Lawton, who won a Best Actor award (International Filmmaker Festival, 2009) for his role as John Miller in Ambleton Delight. In part one we focus on creating characters and using production difficulties to your a...
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Ambleton Delight posted an article on The Recipe to Ambleton Delight - Nov 3, 2010, 8:02 pm
By Dan Parkes (Director) We have previously mentioned the importance of the director having a vision and being able to communicate this effectively (depending on his style of directing). But we must also not overlook some basic tools that all directors should use: 1. Blocking and shot selection Whil...
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