For this week’s assignment to tell an episode of The Wire using only 6 GIFs, I decided to do Episode 8, “Lessons,” from the first season.
Process
Despite having made GIFs before in Intro to Digital Studies, I needed a refresher and found this tutorial to be helpful. However, there was one difference I noticed in the tutorial from what I had to do. Two of the menu screens in the tutorial while exporting from GIMP were merged into one.
This is the menu screen that I saw:
Another change I made to the creative process was that after I had exported it from MPEG Streamclip, I would put all photos in a file and flip through them, deleting the ones at the beginning and end that I didn’t need as I found it hard to make a precise selection of where I wanted it to start and finish in MPEG Streamclip. This gave me a lot more control over the content of the gif and also helped to reduce the file size.
Why I Chose This Episode
The reason I chose to do “Lessons” from The Wire was because I think there were some interesting moments in the episode like McNulty’s kids playing the spy game and Omar’s western-style shootout.
The scenes I chose represent some of the “lessons” present in the episode. I’m not sure if the moments I chose are necessarily the important ones, but I think they’re interesting moments. One weakness I do think is present in my gifs is that none of them have text on them. While most of them didn’t have dialogue to accompany them, several of them did and might have been stronger had I incorporated text. Another weakness I think is more inherent in the medium of the gif than in this assignment or my creation, is that the gif is really only good for a small amount of time. This show is really based on things occurring over time as many seemingly insignificant moments or details become very important later on. That just isn’t something you can capture well in a gif.
“Lessons” in 6 GIFs
1) McNulty goading his kids to continue playing the spy game. If you watch the whole scene, you can tell that he’s taught them well and that they actually enjoy and are skilled at doing it.
2) Omar’s van being consumed in flames. This is yet another retaliation.
3) Wallace helping the kid with his homework. I think this gif really struggles from there not being any text as well as it being such a tiny moment in a really excellent scene.
4) Stinkum being shot. The gratuitous blood is very western and very Omar.
5) Wee-Bey hobbling across the road after being shot and discarding his gun. His pride is really shot in this scene.
6) I couldn’t resist making a gif of McNulty opening the bathroom door to see drunk Bunk in a pink bathrobe. Bunk’s slow downward spiral seems like a series a very hard lessons to learn for everyone involved. I’m not sure if this gif would have been stronger if I had included McNulty’s reaction in it as well.
