Media Archives - Page 6 of 6

Type in Motion

May 24, 2009 by Roy Johnson

typography in graphic animations for Web and video

This book sets itself an ambitious target – to depict graphic animations of typography on the static, printed page. Bellantoni and Woollman do reasonably well under these circumstances. It’s is a high-energy, brilliantly coloured coffee-table book [with a fairly dreadful cover] – but also a serious exploration of the latest trends in type design in commercial and fine art. Double-page spreads are devoted to the work of individual artists or design agencies in this field. They cover film credits, promotions, conceptual video, early TV ads, and cinema presentations.

The collection starts with stills from the work of film title animator Saul Bass. [Remember ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Man with a Golden Arm’? – there’s a new site for him at www.saulbass.tv]. Unfortunately, even though some pages are covered in thumbnails of the sequences, the animation element has to be spelled out in words, which somewhat defeats the object.

Some cinema animations could just as easily have been illustrated with a single frame. The examples which look most interesting on the page are the shots of orthodox typography on promotional CDs (described in artsy-hype-speak as ‘interactive press kits’) and one page of ‘Shakespeare in 3D’ where text and footnotes intersect each other at ninety degrees.

Some of the video and TV sequences on the other hand are very difficult to follow because they are reproduced in small black and white thumbnails, and the pages in general are so crowded that we are not drawn in to contemplate the typeface. Perhaps the most surprising feature of all in a study of this kind is that the typefaces used in the examples are not explored in any technical detail, but are described in generic terms – ‘sans-serif, bold, outlined’.

This is an art book, with some of the pretentiousness which often goes with this genre – for instance: “270% Confessional explores the concept of multiple linearities, functioning at several levels simultaneously. The type sequence is an exploration of memory, verbal communication, and the visualization of a conscience.”

It’s a book which in fact deserves to be a film, or at least a website with .MPGs of the effects they discuss. Nevertheless, I imagine that those people working in graphic animation will welcome this as a convenient survey and a print resource. It’s a pity that there’s no index or bibliography, which might have given it more chance of being taken seriously.

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Jeff Bellantoni and Matt Woollman, Type in Motion: Innovations in Digital Graphics, 2nd edn, London: Thames and Hudson, 2005, pp.176, ISBN: 0500512434

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Understanding Comics

July 8, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the techniques, philosophy, and interpretation of comics

Whenever there is a discussion or an exchange of messages concerning comics or visual narratives, one name crops up again and again – Scott McCloud. Understanding Comics is his now classic work on the comic designer’s art. It’s presented in the form of a comic itself – but don’t let that fool you. He could just as easily given his book the sub-title ‘The Philosophy of Graphic Narratives’. He starts with a chapter defining what comics are (sequential visual art) and shows something of their history, going back as far as Egyptian wall paintings in 1300 BC.

If at first this seems rather obvious or over-simplified, two or three pages into chapter two, he is discussing the theory of visual perception and the nature of iconic language. Next comes the sequencing of action and the decision of what goes into (and what can be left out of) each visual panel of a comic. There’s a very interesting comparison of American and Japanese techniques in which he argues that some of the special effects of the Manga comics arise from different traditions of perception in the East.

He explains the depiction of time and motion via the panel or frame. In fact after doing the same thing for emotion by the use of symbols, he extends his argument to claim that we are in an age where a whole new visual language is in the process of being invented.

The traditional modes of dealing with narrative via showing and telling are demonstrated by the same story being related via pictures and words, then re-combined to show the comic creator’s skill in offsetting one medium against the other to avoid tautology and maximise expressive density.

This is a book which will entrance any comic lovers or anybody who has an interest in media studies or how ideas and stories are transmitted.

Quite a lot of these issues of graphics, narrative, point of view, and are now an active part of online, web-based information. I’m sure he will be aware of that, and I’m sure he will take it into account in any future editions.

He ends with what is obviously a heartfelt plea that comics should be taken seriously as a cultural genre, and he extends this to claim that they haven’t yet even scratched the surface of what they are capable of expressing.

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Scott McCLoud, Understanding Comics, New York: HarperCollins, 1994, pp.217, ISBN 006097625X

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Understanding Media

July 9, 2009 by Roy Johnson

re-issue of classic 1960s media studies text

This is the book which made McLuhan famous with the phrase ‘The medium is the message’. Understanding Media was issued as a warning to the many pundits who refused to take seriously what we now call ‘media studies’ – though his range was much wider than just communication. The first part is a critique of contemporary culture – ‘electric’ as he calls it. Much of this is couched in rash generalisations and dressed up in some of his slightly batty distinctions – such as those he makes between ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ media. All this is steeped in a rich soup of cultural references. On any single page you might be taken from Matthew Arnold and Edward Gibbon, to de Tocqueville, E.M. Forster, and the World Health Organisation.

The second part consists of meditations on cultural phenomena ranging from clothing and money, to transport, comics, radio, and the telephone. These tend to be thought-provoking and patchy rather than systematic – but it has to be remembered that reflections on the cultural significance of television shows, advertising and motor cars was something of a novelty forty years ago.

Since all media are extensions of ourselves, or translations of some parts of ourselves into various materials, any study of one medium helps us to understand all the others.

He has interesting observations to make on anything from clocks and bicycles to advertising and weapons – and these are often delivered in a witty and epigrammatic manner.

There’s a lot of generalising about the relationship between technology and history (or ‘civilization’ as it was still called back then) and he places a great deal of reliance on books such as Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History and Louis Mumford’s The City in History.

His reflections on the typewriter made me wish he had lived long enough to comment on the word-processor and the computer – surely two of the most powerful and widely used devices of the ‘electronic age’. This is a lively and a thought-provoking book. If you didn’t read it first time round, this is a good chance to catch up.

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Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, (first published 1964) London: Routledge, 2001, pp.392, ISBN: 0415253977

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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

May 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Wikipedia is now the biggest encyclopedia in the world. It’s currently twenty-five times larger than Encyclopedia Britannica, and expanding with every day that passes. That’s because anybody can add entries, edit the content, correct mistakes, or contribute new materials. But if you go to Wikipedia and try to start adding your own entries, supplementing other people’s contributions, or correcting mistakes – it’s not quite as simple as it might seem.

There’s online help, but it’s rather deeply buried. That’s why books such as this one from the ‘missing manuals’ series have come into being. They provide the user guides which nobody in open source projects has got round to writing yet. This one doesn’t just tell you about how to create new Wikipedia entries or edit ones that already exist, it explains what types of new material will be acceptable, and which will not.

For instance, I found an entry recently which gave information about the main road which runs through the suburb of south Manchester UK where I live. It listed public buildings, a little local history, and topographical details.

But if I had a dog called Bosun and keyed in an entry on his appearance and habits, that would be removed. The reason? It doesn’t pass the ‘notability’ test. In other words, who cares about your pet dog, or your lovely daughter, or your taste in wallpaper? Yet if you happened to have some botanical information about sycamore trees, or the statistics related to voting patterns, that might be welcomed as new material.

John Broughton covers all the essentials a beginner will need to know – how to add or edit entries; how to create hyperlinks and footnotes; and how to add graphics. So if you would like to join the tens of thousands of (unpaid) volunteers adding to the six million articles in 250 languages – this is a great place to learn the rules of engagement.

The whole of Wikipedia is supervised by volunteer editors; everything is checked; and a record is kept of any changes made, plus when they were made, and who made them. If you were to insert a paragraph saying that Elvis Presley had recently been seen in Tesco, it would immediately be deleted. And if you mischievously added links to your own web site hoping to drive up traffic, these pages would be ‘reverted’, which is Wikispeak to say that they would be wound back to what they were before.

These are some of the reasons why readers can trust Wikipedia more than is sometimes thought. It is a self-regulating mechanism, and vigorous systems exist to combat mistakes, vandalism, and spam. Even the editors have other editors, checking their work.

Even though anybody can add entries to Wikipedia, it’s quite interesting to note what is not allowed. The list includes the presentation of original ideas, routine news coverage, self-promotion, instruction manuals, plot summaries and song lyrics, announcements, sports, and gossip. That’s why my dog Bosun doesn’t get a mention.

John Broughton leaves the technicalities of how to create pages and arrange tables of contents until the end. These sections also include some interesting details on Wikipedia’s house style – no definite or indefinite articles in titles for instance, and bulleted lists are discouraged.

The latter part of the book deals with issues which will interest information architects – the classification of data, how articles are categorized, and how Wikipedia deals with ‘disambiguation’ – which occurs when a single term can have multiple meanings. For instance ‘mercury’ could be the liquid metal or the mythological messenger. Wikipedia deals with these cases using what’s called ‘the principle of least astonishment’ – in other words, what would a reader most likely expect to see listed first.

He ends with some interesting tips on editing and what are essentially collaborative writing skills, plus guidance on checking sources and links, and striving for accuracy in all things. This is rather like an excellent potted course on online journalism. So if you fancy making a contribution, just sign on and get started. Wikipedia even lists articles which are waiting to be written. And to complement its spirit of open sources, the whole book is also available at Wikipedia.org where you are invited to edit and enhance its value.

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John Broughton, Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, O’Reilly, Sebastopol: CA, 2008, pp.477, ISBN: 0596515162

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WordPress Search Engine Optimization

May 23, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tips on settings, plugins, and page tweaking

WordPress SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the art of improving the quality of web pages in order to increase their rankings in search engines – and thereby obtain more site visitors. And it is an art, because despite the mathematical complexity of the algorithms used by Google and others to calculate page rankings, there are many variable features which decide the ranking of a web page. This means that experience and fine judgement are required in deciding which are most important. That’s true even for WordPress, which has plenty of ib-built assistance on SEO.

Nevertheless, there are basic principles that can be followed, and this manual offers a guide to what’s required. The first part of the book is an explanation of how SEO works – the manner in which search engines measure the value of your web pages; what information about them they store; and most importantly, which features of your pages can be tweaked so that they will receive a higher rating. This is all delivered in a thorough, clear, and jargon-free style.

Michael David covers the main content of your site, how pages are built, and how its navigation is arranged. It’s very reassuring to have the basics explained – particularly because of the ambiguous terms WordPress uses for its features. You need to know the difference between a ‘post’ and a ‘page’, even though they both look the same. And it’s helpful to learn that an ‘excerpt’ of a post only becomes a chunk of your page if you don’t fill in any text during the creation process. If there’s nothing in the excerpt box Google will grab the first 55 words of the page – and this will create duplicate material, which search engines penalise. With clever SEO however, the excerpt can be used as the summary of a post – or even an advert for it, using key words.

Michael David claims that the issue of key words is the crucial part of SEO. There are plenty of free sites and software to help you determine the search terms customers are using to locate the products or services you have to offer. The important point here is to put on one side the terms you use, and look at the terms your customers choose.

If there’s a weakness in Michael David’s approach it’s that in the practical examples he creates for discussion, he repeatedly chooses local businesses. ‘Denver Air Conditioning Units’ might be an easy company to get to the top of the search results – because you are limiting the reach of your web site to only that city area. But a company called ‘H.P Lightbrown Ltd’ that sells paper technology or architectural design services to a worldwide audience is a different matter. Nobody is going to search on the company name and you are competing with similar businesses throughout the world.

Many of the topics he covers are amazingly simple to effect – especially with all the help that WordPress offers – but they require careful thought. For instance a post contains a title, a permalink (URL), a slug, a description, an ‘excerpt’, and of course key words. All of these should be as brief as possible, but – here’s the rub – they all need to be slightly different to avoid repetition, for which your pages might be penalised.

There’s a short section on Google Analytics, explaining the information they feed back from spidering a site. This would have been more useful if it contained some practical examples of how this information could be used to tweak pages and increase their rankings.

He also includes a good chapter on writing the content of web pages with SEO in mind – the importance of being succinct and accurate, and how to include keywords without undue repetition. It’s all excellent advice – though it has to be said that this very little to do with WordPress.

All of this is only a prelude to the real business of improving your page rankings – which must be done by generating inbound links – in other words, getting approval from other people’s web sites. This is not easy, because it involves a very laborious process of making multiple submissions (requests for inclusion) to directories such as Yahoo.com and DMOZ.com. Alternatively you can try to attract links by generating content which is irresistibly popular or focused on something very popular or controversial.

The most common help you will be offered to deal with this issue is an invitation to join link farms. These are sites that are composed of nothing but links to other sites. Don’t bother – because as Michael David explains, they are valueless. He also provides other warnings again what are called ‘Black Hat’ techniques.

There is the by now almost obligatory chapter on using social media tools to promote your website. This too involves generating content that will ‘go viral’ (attract millions of viewers) which is much easier said than done – and it’s another chapter which has little to do with WordPress.

Fortunately Michael David finishes with a really useful appendix listing a selection of the most valuable WordPress plugins (all free) that can help you automate the processes he describes. I was mightily relieved to note that I had most of them installed on this site.

If you’ve got a WordPress blog or a full web site, you need to understand all the marvellous features WP offers to deliver good SEO. This guide not only shows you how to configure the software; it also explains why the strategies recommended are to your advantage.

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Michael David, WordPress 3.0 Search Engine Optimization, Birmingham: Pakt, 2011, pp.318, ISBN: 1847199003

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Writing for Broadcast Journalists

July 20, 2009 by Roy Johnson

writing skills and professional advice

Writing for Broadcast Journalists comes from a series on writing and new media which includes Writing for Journalists, Subediting for Journalists, and Web Production for Writers and Journalists. Those people writing for broadcasting (radio and television – and I suppose new media Internet podcasts) have special problems. They must make their style seem like someone talking (not writing) to their audience. They only have one chance to get their message across. And they have to be very careful for legal reasons (‘a bus hit a car’ could be contentious, but ‘a bus and a car collided’ is safer).

Rick Thompson’s guidance manual is packed with advice to would-be writers for this medium. Much of his attention is devoted to the pursuit of cliché, journalese, tabloidese, official doublespeak, and gobbledygook. But he also deals with subtler issues – all based on his long experience in broadcasting – such as the choice of words which sound right, or the avoidance of ambiguity. I was struck by the fact that much of the advice he offers is exactly the same as that offered in academic writing.

And for the same reasons – the search for clarity and accuracy. He advises that you should use short sentences; start with the most important statement; use the active voice; and minimise subordinate clauses. So in fact, although his guidance is targeted at broadcast journalists, it could be profitably followed by writers in most other genres as well.

He’s someone with years of experience at the top level of the national and international profession, and he’s smack up to date with his references – such as the Labour government’s sexed-up dossiers on non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

That’s one of the things I really enjoyed about this book. Its primary purpose is to be a style guide for would-be journalists – but en passant he provides a great deal of insight into political communication skills and public relations strategies.

He has a long list of topics about which extra care should be taken: the titles of important people; geographic place names; the political divisions of the British Isles; numbers and measurement; sex, gender, and race. A slip on any one of these issues can easily lead to a court case.

There’s a clear explanation of the different techniques required for radio, television, and online news reporting; how to write headlines, how to use graphics, and even how to write for live broadcast on location.

He finishes with an interesting list of what he calls ‘dangerous words’ – terms which are commonly misused or misunderstood, such as anticipate and chronic, plus interesting cases such as inflammable and incombustible, which mean the opposite of what you would imagine. This is an amusing way of exposing cliches such as a safe haven. A haven is by definition a safe place of shelter – so this expression is tautologous.

The book is aimed at journalists, but anyone with a serious interest in developing their literacy will learn a lot about professional writing skills from what he has to say.

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Rick Thompson, Writing for Broadcast Journalists, Abingdon: Routledge, 2nd edition 2010, pp.192, ISBN: 0415581680

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Writing for Television

August 14, 2016 by Roy Johnson

interviews with successful writers for television

Writing for television and writing for the cinema are no longer the same thing. New systems of network and cable scheduling have produced what are called ‘long-form television narratives’. These are programmes that run for thirteen (or more) episodes. Each programme is a single whole story – but it is split into separate self-contained units, each one of which will have its own story ‘arc’. That is, each episode is a drama in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end. As one successful screenwriter observes:

The best of television is like a novel. You have episodes like chapters, you can grow the characters, and there is scope to the stories

The interviews in this fascinating collection are with professional American television writers, but the practices they describe spill into British and even pan-European enterprises – all driven by very similar commercial imperatives. The majority of programmes (‘shows’ in US parlance) produced in these new formats are written by teams working in what’s called a ‘writers’ room’ – a group of scriptwriters working under the direction of a ‘showrunner’ – someone who decides on the look and feel of the finished programme.

The writers discuss all the major recent successful programmes – Sex and the City, Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire, and if some of the shows are not so well known you can watch them on YouTube, as I did Tina Fey’s hit 30Rock.

The strength of these new TV formats is that they are exploring new methods of delivery for fiction via visual presentation. They also provide scope for the development of character in considerable depth, in the same way as is common in good novels. The weakness is that some of these ‘shows’ are not much more than soap operas or vehicles for quick-fire quips (see Two Broke Girls).

One other feature worth observing is that many of these programs present the lives of young people who are preoccupied with ‘dating’, flat-sharing, friendships, and lifestyle choices that are the concerns of normal people in their early twenties. But they are acted on screen by people in their 40s and 50s. This presents a credibility challenge to any critical viewer – and strangely enough the phenomenon is so widespread it is almost undetectable, having become the norm.

This studio and writers’ room format has some bizarre and counter-intuitive ‘unwritten rules’. One is that ‘wives don’t cheat’, another is ‘no crime in the ghetto’. In other words, any leading married female character must not be depicted committing adultery – though it is perfectly acceptable for her husband to do so. And even though statistics show that the majority of crimes committed by ethnic minorities (for which, read African-Americans) are against people from the same ethnic group, the studios think that ratings will be lost if such scenes are written into episodes.

The interviews reveal differences in practice between studios in New York and in Los Angeles. Almost all the original writing goes on in California – but an increasing number of shows are actually filmed in New York, because the state offers tax breaks for works shot within its boundaries.

The writers have several things in common – the most notable being that none of them want to work in the cinema. A writer can invest time and creative effort in generating a script, but feature-length films are so colossally expensive to produce, many of them end up not being made at all. One of the interviewees bemoans the fact that a feature film script she has written and had accepted was still being sent back for re-writing after four years. These television writers prefer the faster-paced world and more immediate results of Network and cable television.

The rewards can be enormous – with salaries rising to (Writers Guild minimum) $3,500 per week. But be prepared to work long hours. These people are working under immense pressure to write, edit, produce, and film for thirteen episodes per season, working with co-writers, showrunners, actors, and technicians. Eighty hour weeks are considered normal. And if this all seems very USA-centric, take heart. These well-paid writers have enormous respect for English productions such as The Office, Downton Abbey, and Broadchurch.

And if all this seems way beyond the reach of some aspiring script-writer trapped in a suburban box room without even the fare to travel to Los Angeles, there is a very encouraging chapter on writing for Web TV. Susan Miller outlines the whole process of creating short films using hand-held video cameras and editing the results into a series that runs on the Internet. Have a look at Anyone But Me and The L Word to see examples.

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Christina Kallas, Inside the Writers’ Room: Conversations with American TV Writers, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014, pp.184, ISBN: 1137338105

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Writing for the Screen

August 9, 2016 by Roy Johnson

guidance manual for authors in cinema and television

Writing for the Screen is a guidance manual that combines practical and theoretical advice for would-be writers aiming for success in the cinema or television – though such aspirants would do well to add Youtube and laptop productions to their list of potential delivery platforms.

Although both writing for the screen and writing for print publications largely involve sitting in front of a keyboard generating text, there are huge differences between the two activities. A print writer (journalist or novelist) works alone, has virtually no costs other than time, and generally expects to be the sole proprietor of the finished product. A screenwriter on the other hand is forced to work as part of a team, is likely to incur lavish costs, and will more than likely be replaced as ‘author’ by the director when the credits roll on opening night.

That is probably the single most important lesson that runs through all the chapters of this very successful book. The aspiring screenwriter must be prepared to recognise that soap operas, docudramas, comedy shows, feature films, and even TV shorts are productions, in which the writer is only one member of the creative whole.

The successful screenwriter is somebody who realises that a screenplay is only the rough blueprint for a work that other people will eventually create. The producer, the director, and maybe even the script editor all have higher status and can change the writer’s work to suit the ultimate purpose of the project.

The writer should also bear in mind that having chosen a large or small screen as the medium by which a story is to be transmitted – the visual element takes precedence over all else. It does not matter how subtle or witty the dialogue or commentary is, it will be the pictures which have greatest impact on the viewer. (That’s why directors get higher rating.)

This guide goes through the whole creative process step by step. It begins with writing a pitch, an outline, and a treatment. These are condensed accounts of what you have in mind, but each one has a different purpose. They include a selling document, a summary of the plot, and a step outline giving the bare bones of each scene.

All of these documents (including the script itself) need to be presented according to the conventions of the medium in professional format. Fortunately for beginners, software is now available at Celtx (free), and Final Draft (paid) which will arrange the formatting. You simply add the words.

There’s a very enthusiastic defence of genre which the authors argue is a strengthening factor to any screen production – because it offers structure, plot, tone, character, and even objects that are recognisable to viewers. Whilst this might seem to produce cinematic clichés, there is also an exploration of alternative forms of narrative – such as reverse chronology (Memento and Groundhog Day) multiple protagonists, and parallel narratives (Stephen Daldry’s magnificent film The Hours).

The underlying argument of the guide is that the finished product must offer visual pleasure – which is not to be confused with special effects and CGI manipulations – although there is a spirited analysis of the Jason Bourne trilogy. The authors argue that its car chases and explosions are more than cheap sensationalism a la James Bond, because they are closely tied to the psychological complexity and terror
endured by the protagonist as he is being threatened by the CIA.

The main emphasis of the advice offered in this manual is on the over-riding importance of structure:

The main writing currency in fiction is prose style, whereas the main currency in screenplays is structure. This means teaching is approached differently: for fiction, free-standing writing exercises are offered, focusing on language, metaphor, voice and description; screenwriting deals with acts, step outlines, cards and character arcs

There are practical exercises for generating these skills, and solid advice from the world of professional cinema and television explaining the separate roles in production teams, the opportunities open for beginners, and the differences between commercial practices in American and British film making .

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Craig Batty and Zara Waldeback, Writing for the Screen, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp.201, ISBN: 0230550754

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YouTube: an insider’s guide

July 3, 2009 by Roy Johnson

an insider’s guide to climbing the charts

YouTube didn’t start until 2005, but now it’s mainstream New Media. Why? Because it allows small time punters like you and me to upload video clips which – if they’re interesting enough – will be watched by millions of viewers. And that, if you work the system right, can be converted into a generated income. YouTube has gone from hobbyist niche to big business in just a few years. It was so successful, Google snapped it up for a cool $1.6 billion a year later, and now everyone from hobbyists and amateur daydreamers to semi-professional film makers is posting stuff up there – at the rate of ten hours of video every minute.

If you’re not used to searching for stuff on YouTube, you’ll be amazed at the variety. There’s everything from instructional how-to films, reviews of new products, personal diaries, stand-up comedians, and extracts from movies, to recordings of live theatre and musical concerts. This is a book of technical guidance written by two insiders (or ‘Tubers as they call themselves) showing you how it’s done. They make their purpose very clear right from the start:

You don’t need money or corporate backing to go viral. You simply need a very good, or very bad, video and the know-how to get viewers to your video – both of which you will learn how to do in this book.

After a quick introduction they pitch straight into the main issue of how to make good short films – which is the very basic issue of storytelling. And the emphasis is on brevity. Your maximum upload is only ten minutes, but if you can’t make your point in two you’re dead.

Sometimes people get lucky and video their pet kitten just as it falls of a table chasing a fly, or they might capture a car just after the driver has turned up a one-way street. But these are just one-offs. This book assumes that you want to make regular short films until one gets you into the most-watched slot.

Actually, most of the instruction is already in the form of YouTube visual content. There are lots of clips available showing you how to direct and edit films. They also realistically assume that you want to do all this with minimum expense. That’s not a problem. You use yourself or your friends as actors, and you only need a cheap digital video camera. In fact professional film makers such as Mike Figgis and David Lynch already use them for creating full length feature films.

There’s also advice on microphones, lighting, props, background music, and of course editing. Then once you’ve got something to share, they show you how to create your own channel (profile) on YouTube, and how to customise it and start attracting viewers.

There’s a good chapter explaining the significance and differences between fair use, copyright, parody, remixes, and mashups – then on to the all important business of generating an audience. This can go from responding to visitor comments and participating in user groups and collaborative video projects, to all sorts of semi-legal and downright illegal hacks which can result in your account being suspended. YouTube does its best to make the popularity figures genuine for the materials it hosts.

The logical extension of all this is making money from your work – monetization if you want to use the current jargon. This can be done via YouTube’s partnership program or by running Google Ads. And finally, although they remain loyal ‘Tubers throughout, they end up by showing lots of alternative outlets where you can make your work available. There are also interviews with successful YouTubers who have gone viral and even landed jobs as the result of a two-minute spoof of some TV ad or pop promo.

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Alan Lastufka and Michael W. Dean, YouTube: an insider’s guide to climbing the charts, Sebastopol (CA): O’Reilly, 2008, pp.281, ISBN: 0596521146

More on digital media
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More on theory

typography in graphic animations for Web and video

the techniques, philosophy, and interpretation of comics

re-issue of classic 1960s media studies text

tips on settings, plugins, and page tweaking

writing skills and professional advice

interviews with successful writers for television

guidance manual for authors in cinema and television

an insider’s guide to climbing the charts

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