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Creative Production 269Attention to specialized and esoteric knowledge is characteristic of allfandoms, but it is even more accentuated in highly technical fan practicessuch as machinima, video editing, music making, and fansubbing.Certain forms of media creation often involve collaboration betweendifferent specialties. In describing youth hip-hop creation, DilanMahendran (Hip-Hop Music Production) notes how youth developtargeted specialty crafts, such as beat making (Mahendran 2007). Beatsare instrumental works created on Reason or other software. For manystudents at his DJ project, “making beats” was a primary practice. Beatmaking is a specialty craft that requires an enormous dedication of timeif one is to become proficient, and only a couple of the studentsMahendran observed mastered this craft at this amateur level. The beatis elemental to a rap song and aspiring rappers want original authenticbeats to set themselves off from other rappers. The practice for beginningrappers is to use commercial beats that they sample from CDs of wellknownrappers such as Jay-Z or Kanye West, but after they begin to honetheir craft they often demand custom beats that they may help produce.Beats are highly valued works that accomplished rappers will seek originalversions of.Mahendran’s work, as detailed in box 6.3, highlights the dynamic interplaybetween specialization and collaboration and the ways in whichconsumption, fandom, media connoisseurship, and remix are steppingstonesto developing voice and an identity as a member of a creative elite.Hip-hop is a particularly important case, in that it was a genre of musicthat was ahead of the curve in terms of developing styles of sampling andremix, as well as being grounded within very active amateur productioncommunities where youth develop creative identities and competencies.Within different media and genres of creative production, becoming acreator entails developing either a specialized role in collaborative formsof production, or a signature style that marks an individualized voice. Forexample, within the fandom surrounding anime, there is a wide range offan productions, varying from the more individualized mode of fan fictionwriting or AMV creation to more collaborative modes such as fansubbing,in which subtitles are added to anime and which require working togetheras a tight-knit team.