Content tagged with “media”

“ There’s a house just north of New York City that has become a magnet for film and TV shoots, including almost all pre-recorded videos for Saturday Night Live. ”

“ A humorous rap video about how a cartoon is animated turns out to be quite informative. ”

“This is the precise placing of actors in a film scene. It’s a rehearsal process where actors decide and plan where they will be at each point in the scene, and where they will move during the scene, in relation to the camera. It’s important because an actor has to be in frame, usually facing the…”

“This is a portmanteau of the words ‘agitation’ and ‘propaganda.’ Historically, it has been used for propoganda in support of communism. I couldn’t find a definition that made it clear what the difference was between it and ‘regular’ propoganda. The only thing is that the ‘agit’ part of it tends…”

“Broadly speaking, this is an artist who applies or manipulates the color of media. In comic books, the original drawings were done in black-and-white, and a colorist then applied color to them. So the lines of the drawing and the color were done by two separate artists. (See a good example on the…”

“This is a dance style, popularized by the Crips gang of Los Angeles. Technically, it involves pivoting on the balls and heels of the feet to spell out C-R-I-P. Often, the hands are held high, sometimes pointing at your feet. An authentic gang member might make gang signs with their hands during the…”

“Neither. Both the actor and the city were named (indirectly) for a medieval English hunting ground. The actor, who was born in 1943, is actually named Cornelius Chase. ‘Chevy’ is a childhood nickname. (Apparently, he was also indirectly named after the English land, not the city.) The city in…”

“When an actor appears at the end of the credits prefixed by ‘and’ or ‘with,’ this is called ‘end billing.’ It’s usually reserved for bigger name actors who have smaller parts. For example, in beginning of the movie True Lies , Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis are the main stars of the…”

“ Winning an Oscar often comes down to very shrewd awards marketing by film studios. ”

“ For various reasons, some actors who appear to interact in the same movie, never actually meet each other. ”

“ The ubiquitous roadside billboards promoting Christianity are sponsored by a group called – appropriately – Gospel Billboards , which is a subsidiary of Christian Aid Ministries . They have been erecting these billboards since 2006. Here’s a map showing all the billboard locations. ”

“ A group of artists collaborated with the showrunner of Melrose Place to insert Leftist political art as props in the show. ”

“This book is odd but lovable. I can’t imagine how it got written. It’s about Star Wars . But not about any particular aspect of Star Wars . Rather, it’s a meditation about the…ideas (?) of Star Wars ? The book was written right after The Force Awakens was released. That was the first film in the…”

“ On the eve of the 1996 election, the NY Times crossword had a clue based on the future outcome which could solve the puzzle in two completely different ways. ”

“This is a book that I probably read for the wrong reasons, and a book that I was ultimately unsatisfied with. But in the book’s defense, it could never succeed at what I wanted from it. This is a book that asks the question: What do we do with the art of monstrous men? That question above was…”

“This is the producer of a television show who has creative control over the content of the show. The showrunner is almost always a writer, and manages the writer’s room, making the final creative decisions. How the plot unfolds, season over season, is the responsibility of the showrunner. From an…”

“This is sort of a biography, but more of a coffee table book. It’s a collection of photos of the life of Marshall Mathers (Eminem), interspersed with recollections of his life. It’s actually quite good. He starts by talking about the death of Proof in 2006, who is a rapper I had never heard of. His…”

“This was a group of creatives that would meet for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the interwar period of the 1920s. Many of them were newspaper writers and columnists, and the subjects of their conversations were often printed in the papers of the day. Later, several actors and…”

“ Not sure what to do with this book. It’s basically a polemic against the idea that technology can save us from everything. The author is arguing that some solutions are to be found offline. I’m not sure what the point was, honestly. I got about halfway through it before I abandoned. ”

“This is a book about how we don’t like reality anymore. We like the illusion of reality. As a society, we’re addicted to farce. It’s almost hilarious that this was written in 2009. If only the author had seen what was coming. He talks about ‘the illusion of literacy,’ by contrasting it against…”

“ The Hallmark Channel filmed a story about two sisters and edited it into two movies. Each one is told from the perspective of a different sister, and they share footage where the sisters interact throughout their respective stories. ”

“ In 1978, a BBC science show pulled off a shot for which timing was critical, and for which there would be no second chance. ”

“‘The Method’ is a style of acting that was popularized by the Russian actor Konstantin Stanislavski. It was made much more popular in the United States by Lee Strasborg. The basic idea of The Method is that the actor should believe they are the character that they’re playing. They should ‘lose…”

“ This is the first video ever posted to YouTube. It’s 18 seconds of one of the founders talking about elephants at the zoo, ”

“ A deep dive into the trope of the ‘bulletin board with things connected by string’ used in an investigation. ”

“ The psychological operations unit in the US Army produced their own recruiting video which explains what they do in a very unexpected style. ”

“ An Iowa TV station converts from black-and-white to color, live on the air, in 1967. ”

“Before this was a Tom Clancy novel (1989) and subsequent film (1994), it was a phrase taken from a landmark Supreme Court decision. In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an opinion for a unanimous court in Schenck vs. United States . Two people were arrested for distributing pamphlets…”

“It was named for Thomas Bowdler. In the 1800s, he published The Family Shakespeare , which was a version of Shakespeare’s plays which he felt were more suitable for families. Wikipedia has some examples of his changes. In Hamlet, the death of Ophelia was called an accidental drowning, not a…”

“This is a style of journalism in which the author’s opinion and perspective is injected into the story. It abandons notions of objectivity and dispassion, and tells stories from a clear perspective, often highly stylized and biased. From an article at MasterClass : Gonzo journalism is an…”

“This is the story of the messy end of Sumner Redstone’s life and the struggle for control of his companies: National Amusements, and, by acquisition, Viacom and Paramount. And it really is the story of the end of Redstone’s life. Not even halfway through the book, he turns 60. At about the halfway…”

“Yes. Shrek was a 1990 children’s book written and illustrated by 83-year-old William Steig. The book was quite different from other children’s book. Said one article : …Shrek! in particular inspires a subversive hope: it pushes kids to question the moral and sexual subtexts of fairy tales they’ve…”

“To appreciate this book, I think you need to know who David Steinberg is. I didn’t know who he was. The whole thing didn’t make a lot of sense until I did some research on Steinberg. He’s a Canadian comedian. I was born in 1971, so I didn’t know him because his heyday was the 60s and 70s. He was…”

“I very much regret not getting the audiobook. It would have been spectacular to listen to the author read this. This is a memoir. It was made out to be more than that because (1) the cover is funky, and (2) it has a lot of pictures of artifacts (?) of McConaughey’s life, but make no mistake – this…”

“ The backstory of how one of the most recognizable people in the world went out for an anonymous beer. ”

“ In 2018, a woman figured out how to game the Olympic qualification system and competed in Pyeongchang despite limited skills. People weren’t pleased. ”

“ A backstage view of the director of the Oscar broadcast and the decisions and pace the team has to maintain during a single award and acceptance speech. ”

“ Face-changing apps have gotten so good that a middle-aged man was able to pose as a young, attractive female and amass 16,000 followers just by using a filter on his phone. ”

“ An entertaining list of ‘celebrity paradoxes,’ which is where a story references a real person, and that real person has intersected with that story as a fictional character. ”

“ There’s a special form of signage used in Los Angeles to discretely direct movie set workers and extras to filming locations. They’re written in code with a distinctive visual style. ”

“ Marvel action movies are ‘pre-filmed’ in a kind of ‘draft mode,’ so that huge chunks of the films exist visually before any shooting starts. Sometimes this happens even before the director is hired or the script is finished. ”

“ A story of the horrifying reputation damage one person can do on the internet, and how hard it can be to stop them, or reverse what’s been done. ”

“ A collection of stories from employees of dating apps which reveal they’re not as genuine as you might think. ”

“ A compilation of an Associated Press journalist reporting fluently in six different languages. ”

“ Some people hate the last scene of ‘The Departed,’ to the point where they were fund-raising to digitally ‘fix’ it. (This eventually got shut down by the movie company.) ”

“ An irreverent documentary about the concept of conspiracy theories and why some people need to believe that there are grand, hidden secrets to the world. ”

“ There was a highly influential YouTube star before those were a common thing. But something happened, and he vanished. Completely. ”

“ When creating media entries in Contentful, you can not only upload images from your machine, but connect to a bunch of other systems to find images stored in them. From this interface, the ‘My Device’ option is the only one that leads to a traditional file upload UI. ”

“ The story of how one girl got famous literally overnight and how that affected her life and her mental health over time. ”

“ There was a viral headline all over social media for a couple of days. This article breaks it down, determines what was true and what wasn’t, and presents a larger look into how the news regularly gets twisted. ”

“ There are some fascinating aspects to being a hand model. One of which is that you pretend to be other people’s hands a lot. ”

“ A survey that seems to prove that consuming news primarily via social media causes you to be less engaged and more likely to fall for conspiracy theories. ”

“ In 2012, a baseball announcer correctly predicted a player’s first home run, down to the exact ball/strike count, the type of pitch, and where the home run would leave the park. ”

“ A bizarre, mind-bending, and occasionally disturbing send-up of the intro from every network TV show of the 80s. Buckle up. ”

“ A history of the laugh-tracked sitcom, and why ‘The Big Bang Theory’ was the last major hit to use one. ”

“ A veteran voice actor looks at five drawings of cartoon characters he’s never seen before, and invents multiple voices for them on the spot. ”

“ A harrowing, humbling first-hand account from a contestant on the TV show ‘Naked and Afraid.’ ”

“ Newspaper headlines have informal language conventions called ‘headlinese’ that constitute a new and different dialect. ”

“ A look at how Washington and Moscow have historically communicated and how Twitter might play a role in the future of crisis communication. ”

“ A news report from the early 70s showing how some audience members were physically traumatized after seeing ‘The Exorcist’ in theaters. ”

“This book offers up the premise that the Internet has enabled new methods of original research (new ‘digital methods’) that didn’t exist before. Things like link analysis, search engine indexing analysis, and site crawling analysis. Some of it is interesting, like an extended comparison of the…”

“ A groundbreaking video from 2004 which describes a fictionalized future on what the media landscape might look like in 2014. ”

“ When a domain name owner wouldn’t give it up, the thwarted buyer sent a gunman to his house and attempt to force him to transfer the domain at gunpoint. ”

“ A series of wild, surreal stories describing what it was like producing content for Alex Jones during his heyday. ”

“ A heart-breaking profile of Roger Ebert, written in the middle of his battle with the cancer that killed him. ”

“ An insightful look at how Oprah Winfrey so easily connects with people and uniquely persuades them to reveal themselves in ways other people can’t. ”

“ The actress who played Hilary Banks found Hollywood a tough place after Fresh Prince , but ultimately found other meaning in life. ”

“ The description of the sad decline of a once-great news publication is very likely a mirror to the rest of the industry. ”

“ A video showing some common verbal riffs from various Aaron Sorkin shows. ”

“ A YouTuber explains, in detail, how much YouTube videos make. It’s not just views – the geographic location of the audiences matters, as does how long they watch your video. And then, in the second half of the video, she explains how she tripled her income. ”

“The definitive history of Friends, from the spark of and idea, all the way through the current day and the lingering fandom. I read ‘I’ll Be There For You’ last year, but I remember that book as being quite strongly about the social justice aspects of the show. This book touches on some of those…”

“ Keegan Michael Key provides the anger for Obama’s laid back speech, from the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2015. ”

“ A tribute to the greatest years of ESPN’s SportsCenter, with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. ”

“ An interesting look at what happens when media franchises expand past their core source, and how to juggle what is canon and what isn’t. When you create a fake world, there’s a lot to keep track of. ”

“ A Twitter troll hijacks a picture and creates a meme. The women in the picture eventually find the meme, and their response is not what you would expect. ”

“Notable for a one-minute sequence in the middle where Rogen recollects the moment at an award show event when Hannibal Buress told him that Bill Cosby was a rapist, with Cosby standing just a few feet away. Rogan says that Buress started referring to this in his stand-up routine about a month…”

“ A video which tries to figure out why NASCAR isn’t nearly as popular as it once was. Theories range from young people caring less about cars to safety regulations that have made races boring to our general declining attention span. ”

“ A dissection of the demise of Mic that probably mirrors every digital media outlet in the world (hence the title). Well-written and consequently depressing. ”

“ A teen heartthrob disappears from the limelight and everyone assumes the worst. This story is a little boring by comparison, but that’s what makes it fascinating. JTT just…grew up. ”

“ A video supposedly about where the thousands of Bob Ross paintings went. But it’s really about the history of the Bob Ross phenomenon with lots of unknown backstory tidbits. ”

“ An attempt to find evidence of something which seems inexplicably fabricated. ”

“ A recounting of the difficulties in editing out the profanity and questionable content of Tony Bordain’s TV show that is both hilarious and tender. ”

“ The internet will actually make the next pandemic worse because of the propensity for fake news and misinformation that comes at the intersection of world politics and health. ”

“ An Onion editor regrets going easy on Joe Biden, with a broader reflection on how comedy and entertainment outlets frame and validate public figures, and what their responsibility becomes. ”

“Wonderfully complete history of Reddit, from the childhood lives of founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, through the (ultimately tragic) life of Aaron Swartz. The book has short chapters, and is mainly episodic – each chapter covers some moment in the history of Reddit, and they’re all there:…”

“Devastating analysis of how much we suck as humans, and how easily manipulated we are by social media. It’s a long-range survey of how governments are using social media as a weapon, or force-multiplier, for their own ends. Extensively researched. Seems like a long book, but it is literally 1/3…”

“Honestly, I didn’t love it, which I know is heretical, but it was very episodic – just random episodes kind of strung together with very little unifying plot. This is likely due to the fact that it’s a kid’s book, but, still, I just couldn’t get into it. Also, I wasn’t in love with his writing…”

“‘The Last Tycoon’ was the unfinished novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald – he died while writing it. This text is the unfinished manuscript – it ends, quite abruptly, with a note that says ‘The manuscript ends here.’ Following that is a synopsis of how the story was supposed to end, based on notes,…”

“I originally thought this was just the transcript of The Last Lecture video, but it’s more than that. It’s an expansion of the principles Pausch discussed in TLL, which basically becomes a book of life advice. Some of it is good, some of it is obvious, but it’s a quick easy read. If you’ve seen the…”

“Fantastic look at content technology from a content-centric standpoint. If you have no idea about how to structure your content and get it under management, this is your book. If you’re an experienced content management practitioner, you might not get much out of it, except for a burning desire to…”

“Interesting look at nine factors that are powering the pace of change in the world. I liked the dialectical format – each principle is set against the status quo in an ‘X vs. Y’ format. I feel like the entire book boiled down to, ‘bottom up is winning against top down.’ Well-written, with lots of…”

“A book which counters claims of Left-wing media bias. Chomsky actually claims the media is biased towards big business and government and provides a ‘propaganda model’ which he claims demonstrates it. The rest of the book is mainly history – Chomsky uses things like some murders in Central America,…”

“If you were a geek in the 80s, your book has arrived. The author is one year younger than me, and I half-suspect he was simply trying to cram as many 80s geek references into a single book as he could. The result is insanely fun. Everything is there: Wargames, Dragon Magazine, text adventures on…”

“I love Mindy Kaling so much, but she’s not nearly as funny in this book. The book is sort of an auto-biography, but not very deep, and with the obvious intent to be more funny than anything else. Throughout, she has short chapters which are meant to be funny little essays. Some are okay, but a lot…”

“In college, I took Journalism 101 (actually 110; Augie’s numbering scheme is weird), which I just loved. I maintain it was the best class I took in college, and the one that has provided me more practical value than anything else I took. In it, I learned about the gatekeeper effect , which is the…”

“A fascinating book which details an experiment which took place in 1976. Twenty-one subjects in Evanston, Illinois (north of Chicago) were followed for one year. All of the news that was published in the area was cataloged, as was all the news the subjects consumed. They were regularly interviewed…”

“An interesting book which explores how humans react to the news on an emotional/psychological level. It discusses the different types of news: political, economic, disaster, cultural, etc. and how we perceive and relate to them. Some interesting points I gathered: The true measure of news is if it…”

“This one was tough. It is exactly as advertised – a detailed historical account of the origins of newspapers, specifically in 14th - 18th century Europe. The problem is, that’s kinda boring. I can’t fault the author, but it’s very, very dry topic. And the book is very detailed. I’m glad I read it,…”

“There are books that inform and there are books that inspire. This is both. It’s a delicate balance between practical down-to-Earth suggestions, and large-scale though-provoking visions. Pulizzi navigates the line well. The book gets you thinking about content marketing – specifically, what’s…”