Textual Analysis Charlie XCX Break The Rules

Charlie XCX- Break the Rules

Mise-en-scene

When taking the costumes in to consideration, we can see that when we first see Charli and the girls appear on screen, their styles have been based around school girls, however we can see that they have dressed to their own choices, for example they are wearing short tennis skirts, and a variety of white t-shirts with their hair and makeup fully done. This could be a representation of how girls are beginning to care less about school regulations and are more doing their own thing- such as dress however they like, which shows one message of the video is 'not caring'. In general, the costumes make the girls appear as the more 'cool' and 'popular' school girls, which allows us to understand the meaning of the song itself as we get an inside of the characters. 

When Charli is being filmed on the top of the bus, she is wearing short clothing, sunglasses, and the colours are dark. This could be seen as a representation, as the black leather jacket and tassels make her appear fashionable and trendy, which may be representing many girls' attitudes of being more care free as she is stood on top of the bus, and that the sorts of girls who do this are the more popular ones. However the sunglasses she has on may also be a representation of disguise, that she doesn't want many people to see who she is incase it results in something bad happening- which insinuates that many teenage girls today happily act in rebellious ways yet don't want their to be consequences.

Camera angles

At the beginning of the video, the 6 girls first appear walking towards the camera (walking through their school), and jump cutting is used. For example, a long shot is used at eye-level where the girls appear far away and their whole bodies are visible, it then jumps to them getting even closer to the camera after walking further so that it is more of a medium long shot, to then cutting to a medium shot where the attention is mainly based on Charli, as the camera focuses on her still walking and the attention is taken away from the others in the group. This shows that the main spotlight is on Charli (the singer) and that she is the person who the song relates to the most as it is from her point of view. The fact that the camera angle is at eye-level shows that it is giving the audience a clear view of the girls in the video to see the main characters of the video and gives us a rough idea as to what the video is about.

At the part of the video when the girls are trying outfits on, the use of different camera angles are effective. This is because we see the 'male gaze' appear, when girls are basically being sexualised. This is because the outfits Charli tries on are all fairly revealing (out of her own choice), and when the cameras are either zoomed up close to a certain part of her body, or zoomed out so that her whole body is visible, it shows that either way people will be attracted to her and want to pay attention to her body hence why specific camera angles have been used. For example, mid shots and close-ups are only used, this could be a representation of Charli revealing herself when the camera angles jumps from a close up to a mid shot, as more of her body is being presented to the audience.

A tilted camera angle is used from a long shot at a few points in the video, and it is positioned so the camera is looking up at Charli where her whole body is visible, as are specific parts of her body as she is stood on the top of the bus. The fact of this and also the fact that the bottom half of her body is on show suggests that she wants all the attention to be on herself, as it reinforces her character that she doesn't care about being rebellious.