For the Parallel Plot assignment, I decided to assemble clips of the kids from The Wire season 4 to Childish Gambino’s “Outside.” I think a lot of struggles Childish Gambino references in the song as well as the EP it appears on are seen on The Wire. Whether or not the kids on the show escape it and manage to be as successful as he is (Childish Gambino a.k.a. Donald Glover wrote for 30 Rock and played Troy on Community).  The songs talks about getting outside of “the system” and escaping the viscous cycle that preys upon those who are young and black and growing up in the projects. The boys this season focuses on seem to be battling that and at times, succumbing to it.

To make this video, I downloaded and imported into iMovie episodes 1 and 3 from The Wire season 4. I also imported Childish Gambino’s “Outside.” I then started to pick out the split up the clips of the kids from those two episodes and rearrange them to work with the music. I tried to put clips from school with the lines referencing experiences in school. I then added title screens at the beginning and end. I saved it as a file and uploaded it to YouTube.

The editing is a bit rough in some parts and the clips don’t necessarily parallel Gambino’s experiences, but I think the themes are similar in each; we’re just catching different parts of their lives.

Here is the final product, which I titled “The Boys of Summer Go Outside.”