Analysis: "Knitting A Love Song"

Knitting A Love Song is a 2004 short film directed by Annie Watson. It tells the story of Pearl, a strange and usual, yet ultimately very loveable young girl, and her efforts to seduce an older boy in her school through her passion for knitting. Due to the parallels between Pearl and my own main character, Libby, I chose to search this film for inspiration. Fortunately, it provided.

I am very inspired by the performance of Holly Lucas as Pearl. I feel she conveys a lot of the sweetness and naiveté that Libby must embody in order for my film to work. Lots of Pearl's character is built up in ways other than dialogue, too, which are elements that I find particularly inspiring. One example of this is her bedroom, which is very quirky. I should explore set design and costume in more detail in my own film, as it will be these elements that really emphasise Libby's character.

Pearl's bedroom helps to non-verbally portray her personality

Another element I found particularly inspiring about Knitting A Love Song is the way the film is edited during the scenes where Pearl is daydreaming. Several of these scenes are present in the film, and they are instantly recognisable by the appearance of a 'light leak' effect. This is a very simple yet very effective method of portraying a detachment from reality that I could consider using during Libby's own 'dream' sequence. I would perhaps like to try something more adventurous, but this is definitely something we can fall back on if my other ideas do not work out - especially as an effect like this is easily added in post-production.

A 'light leak' effect signifies a detachment from reality

Overall, I found Knitting A Love Song to be a very useful film to analyse, as I feel it has given me some more guidance into how I shall direct Libby, as well as giving me inspiration for a possible method of making the dream sequence seem more surreal, through use of the light leak effect. The next step will be to explore other ways of connoting surrealism that are perhaps a little more complex.