Music
Records got louder for thirty years, and the reason was competition rather than taste
The loudness war was a rational response to how music was encountered. Understanding what was traded away explains a great deal…
Sanjeev Pillai
Television writer, Hot Gupshup
Sanjeev writes about series structure and why second seasons are the hard ones.
Contact Sanjeev through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
20 articles
Music
A record producer is doing four different jobs and the credit does not distinguish them
The title covers everything from writing arrangements to managing a budget to deciding when a take is finished. Which job it means…
Music
The vocal you love was assembled from thirty takes, and that is normal practice
Comping is the standard method for building a lead vocal. Knowing how it works changes what you are hearing when a performance…
Music
Mastering is not making it louder, and the confusion costs musicians money
The final stage before release is small, technical and widely misunderstood. It is the difference between a mix that works…
Music
Album sequencing still matters even though almost nobody listens in order
Track order is a set of decisions about contrast, key and pacing. It survives the shuffle era because it shapes the record even for…
Television
A second season is structurally harder than a first, and almost nobody warns you
The first season had a premise to spend. The second has to generate its own, on a shorter schedule, with an audience that already…
Television
Binge and weekly are two different art forms wearing the same episode count
Release pattern is not distribution trivia. It changes what a viewer remembers, what a writer can rely on, and whether a show can…
Television
Series finales are nearly impossible to land, and the reasons are arithmetic
A finale has to satisfy several incompatible expectations at once, held by an audience that has had years to form them. Very few…
Television
A series bible is a promise about a show, and most of it does not survive production
The document that sells a series describes rules, arcs and a world. What happens to it once cameras roll is one of television's…
Television
The anthology solves television's oldest problems and creates a fresh set
Resetting the story every season or every episode removes the burdens of continuity. It also removes the thing that makes viewers…
Television
Long-running shows survive by rotating their focus, not by deepening one character
An ensemble is a resource that has to be spent carefully. The shows that last are the ones that understood how much attention any…
Television
Television scenes are shorter than film scenes, and the difference is not laziness
A drama scene on television typically runs a fraction of what an equivalent film scene would. The reasons are partly historical…
Music
A scene needs three things before it becomes a genre, and a venue is usually one of them
Music does not spread evenly outward from a single act. It concentrates first in a small number of physical places, and the shape…
Television
Some shows only get good after most of the audience has already gone
The version of a series people remember is the one they watched. Shows that improve late are judged by a version that no longer…
Television
A show's real audience often arrives long after the schedule stopped waiting for it
Series are commissioned, judged and cancelled on a timetable that assumes viewers turn up promptly. A great many of them do not…
Television
An ending rewrites the whole series in memory, which is why the argument never stops
How a show finishes changes how people remember everything before it. That retroactive effect is stronger than the finale's own…
Television
Unscripted television turns people into characters, and the audience holds both readings at once
Viewers know that participants in unscripted shows are real people. They also relate to them as characters, and the two modes never…
Music
Sampling turned records into a conversation, and the law decided how expensive talking would be
Using part of one recording inside another is an old creative practice with a complicated legal position. Both halves shape what…
Television
Every episode now arrives with an apparatus of commentary attached to it
Watching a series has become watching a series plus reading about it. That layer changes what an episode has to do and how quickly…
Television
The people who care most about a show want different things from the people who merely watch it
Every series has a committed audience and a casual one, and their preferences diverge. Which group a show serves is a decision with…