Mixed Tape- Luke Snellin

Mix Tape is a Short Social Realism film written and directed by Luke Snellin. The main character is a young boy, possible early teens and we see a young girl and her mother.

The themes and issues adressed appears to be young love, which is portrayed in a humours way because the characters seem mature for their age, eg. reading a newspaper. The boys room is adjacent to hers, which is shown through diegetic music from the tape that she is playing that is also heard through his room.

At the beggining we see a boy who has made a 'mix tape' which generally, is made for a partner or given to someone you are fond of, so theres an immediete indication that there is a girl involved.

The film uses the social realism style uniquely because it shows the positive elements of the characters childhood, as apposed to many films that focus on the negatives. It is inspiring because it represents the characters feelings towards each other without expressing it verbally.

The film uses the short film format to purely illustrate the characters feelings and it is successful because it gives as much information as needed, leaving the viewer to finish the film wondering what would happen next. The use of shots and editing, such as slow motion and close ups contribute to the portrayal of the characters feelings, useful to not in planning my own film.

The sound used in the film is both diegetic and non diegetic, a soundtrack is played parallel to the slow motion shot in order to highlight the atmosphere at the start which then stops as there is dialogue which puts focus on it. The same song is then played again, but this time in a diegetic form which indicates its importance.

As previously mentioned, the film seems to be about young love, the audience can relate to the characters and their situation, whatever age they may be. The view of the subject matter is contraversial, perhaps people find it cute or slightly humours, however most people are most likely to feel positvely towards it. It almost goes against childhood stereotypes that they would posses such strong feelings at a young age which is why the film works.