In a heartbeat - Textual Analysis

Mise en scene
In a heartbeat represents many micro elements in a short time. For example the young characters in the short film judge the other young males in schools and that causes young people to look or dress a certain way to fit in. this could be seen in Gramsci's hegemony, when the boys are looking into each others eyes everyone looks at them with disgust because the dominant ideology in the school is probably that everyone is heterosexual. which causes the ginger boy to run off and the colour palette changes to gloomy sad colours which represents the boy's emotions.

Camera
The close ups are different in the fact that when there is a close up on the ginger boy he's in love with his dream boy and his heart starts to beat out of his chest, on the other hand when there is a close up on the brown haired boy he is cool, calm and collected  and when contact with the ginger boy happens he is puzzled because he is trying to be someone he isn't and they both are shying away from their true emotions. This ties into Stan Cohen's theory of moral panic and again this is them being someone they're not to fit in as they know when they show emotion to each other it's not socially accepted in the school they go to which is why they both have to act cool and hide true emotions.

Sound
When the ginger person locks eyes to his dream boy romantic music is played which can represent that homosexuals don't voice their opinions. The film has no dialogue which the director has done purposely in order to magnify the message of the film as it can all be seen through the actions of the characters- and may be due to them highlighting that some homosexuals suffer their feelings in silence. This again is gramsci's hegemony as it's the 'norm' to be heterosexual and voice it where as homosexuals are less vocal and shy

Editing
As it's in CGI it means that the director can do things with the film, that they would be unable to do with real life characters e.g. have a flying heart. The CGI flying heart is used as it is a metaphor for the uncontrollable emotions that the homosexual character has and therefore extends the message that we cannot choose who we love (which is evident throughout the film).