Planning: A Theoretical Approach to Pop Punk

Our chosen song ('The One' by Octane Ok), fits within the pop punk/indie genre. This post hopes to identify fitting elements for this genre in a theoretical manner.

Conventions of the Pop Punk Genre:
Location:
Pop punk videos are regularly shot in towns or calmer, more rural areas near towns (eg. forests with houses set into them). This can be seen in many of the videos I've studied so far. Eerie forests seem to used regularly.

Props:

The videos which show all of the band in the performance section (not just the frontman), generally include instruments. These tend to be the only props included.

Costumes:

Costume in pop punk videos are usually relatively basic - usually consisting on dull, monochrome themes (black, greys, etc.). The males are mostly dress in skinny jeans and tshirts to keep with the casual theme. The women are sometimes dressed up a little more. This is shown perfectly in the clothing styles of bands like PVRIS.

Lighting:

The lighting varies widely in music videos within this genre, depending on the themes of the song and the general house style of the band. For example, despite both being three pieces with female vocalists, Paramore has a far lighter theme than PVRIS.

Narrative and Performance:

The majority of pop punk videos contain both narrative and performance at a ratio of around 60:40 (narrative:performance). However, some videos (eg. 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' by Futures) are exclusively performance, those these aren't as common. There are very few pop punk videos that use conceptual videos.

Shot types:

Pop punk is one of the few genres that include a lot of long shots, or shots that show most of the subjects body. As well as this, the shot types are usually extremely varied. Close ups are regularly used in the chorus performance parts of these videos.

Editing:

Pop punk videos usually stick to the general conventions of most pop music videos - meaning that the editing cuts to the beat of the song.

Goodwin's Theory:

Which areas of Goodwin's theory we intend to include:

• Synaesthesia. We hope to link our visuals in the narrative to the lyrics.
• Genre characteristics are sensible to use, so as to appeal to our target audience.
• Close-ups of the main artist during chorus, to reinforce to band identity.

Areas we will do NOT intend to use:

• We won't use male gaze in our video, as pop punk generally doesn't sexualize women as much as other genres.