Derided as simple, dismissed as inferior to film, famously characterized as a vast wasteland, television nonetheless exerts an undeniable, apparently inescapable power in our culture. The secret of television's success may well lie in the remarkable narrative complexities underlying its seeming simplicity, complexities Kristin Thompson unmasks in this engaging analysis of the narrative workings of television and film. After first looking at the narrative techniques the two media share, Thompson focuses on the specific challenges that series television presents and the tactics writers have devised to meet them--tactics that sustain interest and maintain sense across multiple plots and subplots and in spite of frequent interruptions as well as weeklong and seasonal breaks. Beyond adapting the techniques of film, Thompson argues, television has wrought its own changes in traditional narrative form. Drawing on classics of film and television, as well as recent and current series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Sopranos, and The Simpsons, she shows how adaptations, sequels, series, and sagas have altered long-standing notions of closure and single authorship. And in a comparison of David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, she asks whether there can be an "art television" comparable to the more familiar "art cinema."

Holman covers the broad field of sound accompanying pictures, from the basics through recording, editing and mixing for theatrical films, documentaries and television shows. In each area, theory is followed by practical sections.

A practical guide to current entertainment laws peculiarities and "creative" practices. Includes two new chapters: Legal Remedies and Retaining Attorneys, Agents, and Managers.

This volume brings together a range of voices from across the global environmental media community to build a comparative international set of perspectives on ‘green’ film and television production. Through this, it provides a necessary intervention in environmental media studies that actively foregrounds media infrastructure, production, policy, and labour – that is, the management and practice of media production cultures. Due to its immense sociocultural influence and economic resources, the global screen media industry is at the forefront of raising awareness for the political and social issues resulting from accelerated environmental instability. However, the 21st century relationship between screen media and the environment has another face that demands urgent scrutiny. The advent of the digital age and the vast electrical and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructures required to support digital production, distribution, and archiving has resulted in the rapid expansion and diversification of the industry’s resource use, infrastructure construction, energy dependency, and consequent waste and emissions production. Addressing these structures is essential to alleviating their environmental and social impact and ensuring that the industry’s rhetoric on environmental responsibility is reflected in its practice. As a mitigating counterbalance to the above trends, there has been a heightenedpush for sustainability measures along various lines of industry management, policy, and practice. These initiatives—including the cultural values they reflect, the political economies that form their logic, the managerial and marketing tactics that orchestrate them, and the environmental realities of their implementation—form the central object of inquiry for this collection.

Music has played a critical component in the success of films. This volume compiles over 100 years of writings devoted to the subject of film and television music and its practitioners.

Heralded as "the most significant invention [for film] since the coming of sound" (The Observer 2003), by 2005 DVD players were in approximately 84 million homes in the US, making it the "fastest selling item in history of US consumer electronics market" (McDonald 2007: 135). This book examines the phenomenal growth of DVDs in relation to the cultures, economies, texts, audiences and histories of film, television and new media. Film and Television After DVD brings together a group of internationally renowned scholars to provide the first focused academic inquiry into this important technology. The book picks up on key issues within contemporary media studies, making a particularly significant contribution to debates about convergence and interactivity in the digital media landscape. Essays consider DVD as a technology that exists outside the boundaries of "new" and "old" media, examining its place within longer histories of home film cultures and production practices of the film and television industries, whilst also critically evaluating what is genuinely "new" about digital media technologies. From DVDs to downloading, peer-to-peer networking and HD-DVD, this book speaks of the rapidly evolving digital mediascape. Ultimately, Film and Television After DVD is a book that considers the convergence of film, television and new media and their academic disciplines through the DVD as a distinct cultural object, pointing to persistent questions in the study of audiovisual culture that will remain intriguing long after the shelf-life of the DVD itself.

Building Successful and Sustainable Film and Television Businesses provides a truly cross-national, comparative dialogue that is vital to the field of media industry studies today. It presents an overview of the film and television sectors in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, drawing together their common elements.