Found It!

Ian Ely is a fifteen year old filmmaker from Atlanta, Georgia currently in 11th grade. At the end of 2012, Ian got his first "real" camera for Christmas. This sparked an interest in video. He started creating mini stop-motion videos of simple things, moving plates, car crashes, and the like. Once he got his first editing program, Ian started focusing more on live action videos. His parents got him his own computer and an even better editing software package for Christmas 2013. At this point, he started to focus on developing his narrative skills, as he stated in an interview with us, “Compared to my previous work, this new work had a more detailed and professional story line.” Then in 2014, Ian joined the 2014 Summer Film Intensive in Atlanta, a collaboration between The Artizen Company (Aimee McCoy and Tae Eady) and PushPush Theater (Tim Habeger). During this film camp, he worked on a group film called Youtopia, a film about a pregnant teenager and the pros and cons of technology. After the camp finished, he asked if he could work on the post-production of Youtopia. He was tasked with completing the behind-the-scenes for the camp. Ian worked in a student teacher relationship with Aimee McCoy. This sparked a connection with The Artizen Company. He has attended several after-school programs of The Artizen Company. He was introduced to Media Literacy, where students analyzed movies, trailers, ads, books, music, and other types of media and asked questions regarding every aspect of media. Questions included “Who might be harmed or disadvantaged by this media?”, “What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this media?”, etc. Currently, he attends The Artizen Company's STepSTone Arts program, where students can take a huge variety of workshops in the arts.
In 2015, Ian attended the 2015 Summer Film Intensive, this time a collaboration with The Artizen Company and Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery. He participated in two out of four weeks, due to having to go to Spain. In this time frame, he was able to film his biggest piece of work to date, a short film called Death. After filming the first version of Death, everyone decided that due to the subject matter and the characters in the script, it should be filmed with adult actors instead of camp participants. Final filming was completed two months after the Summer Film Intensive 2015 ended. Now Death is his best film and has been accepted into two film festivals: The American Youth Film Festival and Y’allywood Film Festival, where he received two Awards (Best Cinematography and Bright Future Award, respectively). In 2016, Ian attended the Summer Film Intensive 2016, where documentaries were the focus. There, he filmed and created the rough draft of his new film, Found It!, which was completed in April. Ian wants to continue his endeavor in film by attending more summer camps run by The Artizen Company, like the Summer Film Intensive 2017, and by learning from filmmakers in the Atlanta area.