I am so excited to announce I have finished my Critical Close Reflection on this film and process.
Thank you to my group members (Davina. Yiqi, and Thomson) and teacher (Mrs. Wozniak) for helping me through this process and I hope my reflection gave you an insight to behind the scenes and how I have learned and grew from this experience
Well, this is what we have been leading up to this whole time. Here is "Finding Ivy" Until next time...
I can’t believe this day has finally come. After over four months of hard work, planning, filming, editing, and blogging, we’re officially wrapping up our project. It’s surreal to think about how much effort we’ve put into Finding Ivy, and now, with its release set for February 18th, we’re both excited and a little sad to see it come to an end. This film has been such a big part of our lives for the past semester, and it's strange to think that after today, we'll have no other blog to post or no other scene to revise.
Surprisingly
Looking back, this project was much more fun and interactive than we ever expected. At the beginning of the year, we knew we wanted to make something special, but we had no idea how much time and dedication it would take to bring our vision to life. Now that we're here, we can truly look back on the journey. We're definitely going to miss the midnight group chats, the endless re-edits, and even the fights that made our film the best it could be. As we move forward in our media studies class, we have no idea what's next, but nothing will compare to working on Finding Ivy.
Our Theme
Beyond the process, we would like to pause for a moment to reflect on the topic of our film. While it was an enjoyable, creative project, at its core, Finding Ivy is designed to make individuals more conscious of the dangers children are exposed to in online spaces. Online safety is something which is neglected, and our film illustrates how youngsters can be taken advantage of so easily when they are unaware of the risks. It's a really serious topic, and we're hoping that through our film, we can contribute to the debate and encourage greater awareness and education on online safety.
Thank You
We would also like to use this moment to express our gratitude to everyone who has supported us throughout. To start with, a huge thank you to Mrs. Wozniak for guiding us, replying to our queries, and being constantly available to guide us through filmmaking pitfalls. Thanks to our amazing group members—Thomson, Yiqi, and Davina—for making this experience so great. We each played a critical role in bringing this project to life, and I could not have asked for a more wonderful team. Last but not least, thanks to Cambridge for providing this course and enabling us to create a film that we are so proud of.
September 2024:
It the beginning of the year, we were in a rush to make our blog stand out. With no clear direction for our final project, we hastily chose a floral background with roses—pretty, but completely unrelated to our film’s theme. It was September, and our priority was originality rather than cohesion. We just wanted something different from everyone else's, something that looked cute and aesthetically pleasing, without much thought about how it would tie into our future work.
Now, in February, we are changing it again. This time, it’s intentional. The new aesthetic aligns with the eerie and unsettling nature of our project. The background now features a spooky, foggy forest with lamps lining the path and a small crosswalk, symbolizing Ivy walking into the unknown. It creates a sense of mystery, danger, and the kind of eerie foreshadowing that fits our film’s story. While the blue theme was stunning and had its own appeal, keeping it wouldn’t have been true to the emotional weight of our project. The new design captures the essence of our film—something slightly creepy, slightly off, and filled with an overwhelming sense of loss.
In addition to the background shift, we transitioned our color scheme from blue to gray. Gray represents emotional detachment, shock, and sorrow, which reflects the tragic turn in Ivy’s story. It adds a level of neutrality that conveys the bleakness of what happens in our film, reinforcing the themes of danger and loss. This new aesthetic isn't just about looking good (even though I made sure it did) it’s about immersing the audience in the tone of our story before they even watch the film. It finally feels like our blog is in sync with our vision.
When we first started our movie, we did not take into account that sound would be so hard to come by. We figured we could leave it until the end since we thought sound effects and background noise would be easy to come by. However, when we were nearing the end of our project, we quickly learned otherwise. Finding the right sounds, particularly sounds that were the right tone for our movie and also free, was a much more difficult process than we had originally anticipated.
It was a deliberate attempt on our part to look for sounds that were free from copyright so that all of the content we included in our movie was legally acceptable. But we were really surprised at how much copyrighted sound material there is on the internet. Even the most mundane sound effects, like notification pings from popular programs such as Discord, are copyrighted. It was surprising to learn that even sound effects used in mass YouTube videos and major films had to be paid for in license fees. It was enlightening to see how much of the film industry relies on licensing and the proper permissions to use sound, something we had not considered entirely before.
Although we were able to find substitutes for most of the sounds that we needed, the process was far from simple. The non-copyrighted alternatives that we found were often of poorer quality, difficult to integrate into our video, or just not quite what we were looking for. We had very little to select from, which made it even more difficult to get exactly the effect that we wanted. In a few instances, we needed to edit the sound effects we discovered to more suit the scene, adding another level of intricacy to our editing process.
Music was the other significant difficulty. Though we wished to utilize background music to increase the feeling of particular scenes, locating non-copyrighted music that suited our film was even more challenging than locating sound effects. We ended up using virtually no music whatsoever because of this obstacle. If we had had more time to work on the film, we might have attempted to get in touch with any musicians or artists and ask if we could use their music, especially for a school project. But since we had so little time, we had to work within the limitations we were given.
Lastly, we are hoping that because this is a non-profit, educational project, most sound providers allow their work to be used as long as it's not for profit, and we're hoping that this will carry over to our film. This has been an eye-opening experience about the significance of sound in filmmaking and how challenging it is to get high-quality, legal audio. Moving ahead, we will definitely approach sound design with much more planning and sensitivity in future projects.
Sound Effects Used
https://youtu.be/hhz6AI45IQw?si=3X14VZeuc4KfxiBJ
https://youtu.be/P3aAsD9TZNM?si=bb6bJu3EvMimYEtx
https://youtu.be/i7Fsg_ENv64?si=7VYac4iSuIuoLgBg
https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/751902/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ur01bT1778
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss8Qw_aOjJg
https://freesound.org/people/florianreichelt/sounds/459964/
https://youtu.be/a9QCiMuyVjQ?si=9InHQYH0yC5q-B29
https://youtu.be/wOYyu6ZKOUY?si=dxfO_pdbutFt4XlOhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-_JmN2rUNM
Music Used
Acting
Although my acting stint in our movie was short—so short that if you blink, you will miss me—I did officially appear. My on-screen time is less than two seconds, where I was involved in the kidnapping scene and played Stuart for a few seconds. Nevertheless, I think my greatest contributions to the movie were off-screen, where I performed several different roles to help put everything together.
Directing
Co-directing alongside Thompson was my greatest responsibility. In a call, we were the main ones who were coming up with lines, developing scenes, and trying to come up with creative ways of making the film more interesting. I was always considering how to improve the story, suggesting alternative ways of making certain things work, and ensuring that everything fit into the overall structure of the movie.
Camera and Producing
One of the major tasks that I undertook was that of the cameraman. I stood behind the camera for most of the shots that were taken in the house, ensuring that frames were correctly done and that things were captured as we wanted them to be. I ensured that the angles were the best possible and that the visuals met the tone we were going for. Since we were filming at my house, I also essentially provided the set, making sure that the room was set for shooting. This entailed cleaning and organizing all the stuff to make the setting neat to appear nice for our scenes. I also provided the iPad that we utilized to shoot, which made sure that we had a reliable device to record all the content.
Teeny Ting bit in editing
Aside from being the director and cinematographer, I also lent a hand during editing by making suggestions on some of the choices. Even though I was not the primary editor, I still gave suggestions on things like transitions and the order of scenes in an attempt to help refine the final product. My own contribution may not have been glamorous or even highlighted, but it was definitely crucial to our film coming together in the best way that it could.
If you've read our last blog, you would know that we did touch a bit on timing in some of our last changes. We initially thought that we would struggle to keep below the two-minute mark for our film. As we kept editing and tightening our shots, though, we soon realized that we had the reverse problem—we struggled to keep the film below two minutes.
There were a couple of additional scenes we would have preferred to include in order to heighten the connectivity and continuity of our story. For example, we initially planned to include a scene of Kevin and Stuart gaming, which would have helped introduce viewers to their characters and the nature of their online communications with Ivy. Also, we wanted to include an extension of the conversation between Ivy and Daniella, where they would discuss the pros and cons of going to meet Kevin and Stuart at Target. This would have provided greater insight into Ivy's thinking and highlighted the conflict between the two friends.
We also wanted to include a scene of Kevin and Stuart heading out to Target. This would have helped to make the transition smoother and reiterated their existence in the real world beyond the game. Similarly, we wanted to include a scene showing how Ivy went to Target since it would help to clear any confusion over how she had gotten there in the first place. These scenes would have provided realism to our film and allowed the audience to fully grasp the series of events prior to Ivy's kidnapping.
We wished to incorporate these aspects, but sacrifices had to be made so that our film could be within the two-minute limit. While it was a struggle to exclude scenes that would have provided more definition and realism, we believe that we utilized our time appropriately. By being selective as to which moments we kept, we developed a brief and intriguing opener that addresses the central conflict and retains the viewer. The timing battle finally proved to be our education in emphasizing critical moments and strategically cutting in order to give the best film possible under our limitations.
