To give myself further ideas of how a little girl would talk or react to certain things, I decided to watch ‘I Am Sam’ (2001), a story about a mentally-challenged single father and his daughter.

What I got from the little girl’s character, whose name is Lucy, is that she is a very inquisitive and straightforward child. She is also capable of making her own decisions and is adamant as a child naturally should, for instance, when a child insists to do something or demands for a specific toy. I allowed a bit of Lucy’s character to feed into the two little girls we have in our short film, seeing as how their conversation is actually the build-up to our climatic scene.

More than just observing how a little girl reacts to the world around her, I also paid attention to the way some of the parts were edited. Seeing as how I am going to be editing our short film, I took notice of some techniques I could draw from this movie. As an example, scenes with Lucy and her dad playing or having fun together were slowed down, causing more vivid emotions that allowed me to take in what was going on. As for the more climatic, dramatic scenes, the editor made lots of cuts and close-ups on faces, and that gave me a panicky sort of feeling.

By analysing the little things that make a film, I believe that more than visual aesthetics, editing plays a big role as well. The choices one makes when it comes to video editing is crucial to the progression and chronology of a story, and those choices we make will influence how the audience views the story and ultimately how they will react to it (Bell 2009). Paying attention to where and how we edit is fundamental to a good film, and I hope that I will be able to achieve just that with our short film. 

REFERENCES
Bell, J 2009, Editing: The True Storyteller, Center for Digital Education, viewed 26 March 2016, < http://www.centerdigitaled.com/artsandhumanities/Editing-the-true-storyteller.html>.
I Am Sam 2001, film, The Bedford Falls Company, USA.