This ground-breaking book brings together the work of leading theorist, Theo van Leeuwen, on time-based multimodal forms of communication including speech, music and film. This book is richly illustrated with examples, including analyses of time management texts, everyday interactions such as waitressing in a restaurant, classic and contemporary films, television crime series and documentaries, a wide variety of kinds of music, online educational software, and SmartArt templates for the diagrammatic representation of time-based practices.