What A Girl Is

Shaping a Message Through Found Footage

What A Girl Is, is a found-footage collage film edited for my Cinema & Diversity course at Keene State College, built around the song “What a Girl Is” by Dove Cameron. The project weaves together pre-existing 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 all-encompassing footage into a cohesive visual narrative. I used rhythmic montage, contrast, and intentional pacing to align the imagery with the song's arc. This then allowed me to juxtapose stereotyped media portrayals with powerful real-world examples of women challenging and reshaping cultural expectations.

I reached out to 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 chosen stories. This adds a 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 clips into a unified commentary on identity, representation, and the evolving definition of what a girl truly is. This film is important to me because the topic hits close to home, being a woman in a male-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.