What A Girl Is

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What A Girl Is is a found-footage collage film I edited for my Cinema & Diversity course. It is built around the song “What a Girl Is” by Dove Cameron. The project weaves together clips from television shows, commercials, interviews, and key historical moments to explore how women have been portrayed, limited, celebrated, and redefined across different eras of media.

As the editor, my work focused on sourcing, organizing, and shaping this wide-ranging footage into a cohesive visual narrative. I used rhythmic montage, contrast, and intentional pacing to align the imagery with the song's arc—juxtaposing stereotyped media portrayals with powerful real-world examples of women challenging norms and reshaping cultural expectations.

I reached out to some friends to get real-world examples of them being mistreated, undervalued, and even disrespected just because of their gender. I added powerful quotes from their stories that they chose to share. This adds the real world touch before the song even starts.

The result is a music-driven visual essay where editing serves as the core storytelling tool, transforming disparate archival clips into a unified commentary on identity, representation, and the evolving definition of what a girl is. This film is important to me because the topic hits close to home, being a woman in a malle dominated field. Women are still being underappreciated and overlooked in today’s society. This film makes me angry, sad, disgusted, and also empowered to change our world today for equality for women and men.