Skin Deep

Representation

Skin deep is representing a young boy, who lives in a run down estate which is predominately a white neighborhood. Romo, the young boy, is a mixed race boy, half english, half pakistani. The film represents the hard times asian people had in these times. The director has shown how Romo tries to hide his true identity by joining in with a 'Skinhead' gang. The director has also represented 'Skinheads' in this film and has represented them as being thugs and abusing to other nationalities. This can be seen as a true representation as skinheads of this era were known to be abusive to other races. The director also represents other peoples lives by showing the area they live in. the area is shown to be very run down and this signifies poor lifestyles.

Institution

The label that distribute and deal with Skin Deep is Dazzle films. Dazzle film is a UK independent label that covers, distribution and sales rights for a collection of UK award winning short films.

Values

The film represents the true values of people living in a poor area. The film shows how people have to differ their identity in order to either keep a low profile or fit in with the crowd. The film illustrates well how poor conditions can affect peoples lives.

Audience

This film connotes that the audience would be young adults, as the dialogue and the complex of the body language showed by the cast is too difficult to understand for a young audience. Also I feel the audience will probably be males as the main cast are males and act in a violent way which would attract males over females.

Language

The mise en scene in the film is shown to be very poor condition due to the poor people in the area. The director uses real cast and is shot on real location to really show to the audience that the characters are living in a poor area. the shots of the streets signifies to the audience that there is nothing to escape from and therefore gangs are formed and cause trouble amongst society.

Ideology

The values of these short film is to get the audience to understand what some young people have to do to fit in. The director shows this by having the protagonist as a mixed race boy in a socially white area. This challenges the young male and the youth must dis obey his beliefs in order to fit in. An example of this would be when he is in a situation where his skinhead mates are abusing a asain boy and Romo is in a dilemma, but decides to join in with the abuse to again feel accepted by a group.

Narrative

The film is shot on real location and the protagonist Romo is a mixed race boy. We first see him challenging his identity at the start when he is shouting at himself in the mirror, trying to act like a skinhead. It then adds up why he is doing this, when he is working in a garage with racist skinheads and we see that Romo must go against his own identity to fit in. However is this the right decision? The short film ends with Romo crying and is clearly distraught again in the mirror and he starts to shave his hair off. This signifies to the audience that the young male still doesn't know who he is.

Genre

The genre of this short film is drama as we see how lives can be changed by decisions wrong or right only the person can decide.