Wire 106 – Page 4 – It’s all in the course, yo

Wire 106: S03E03 “Dead Soldiers”

In this video discussion of episode 3 of Season 3 of the The Wire, “Dead Soldiers,” Paul and I were joined by Meredith Fierro, Amy Wallace, and Alison Thoet. The conversation covers a lot of ground, and this episode has a bunch of memorable moments, including the ramping up of the Compstat narrative, the western style shootout between Omar’s gang and the Barksdale crew, Fruit’s crew makes their violent play to defend their territory, and the Irish wake for Jay Cole (in honor of the real life death of the show’s executive producer Robert Colesberry in the off season).

This episode was written by Boston crime fiction writer Dennis Lahane, probably best known for his novel Mystic River. This highlights something I discussed in my post for the last episode, season 3 of The Wire is written by some of the best crime fiction writers in the business. Take a look at the lineup of writers for these twelve episodes:

I listened to David Simon’s commentary for this episode, and I really enjoy his commentary when he is doing it solo like this one. One of the moments he talks about, that I bring up in this discussion is the influence of the Western film genre of the series. In particular, he talks about how the shoot-out between Omar’s gang and the Barksdale crew was based on the ambush scene at the beginning of Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch (1968). This film is a personal favorite, and it was awesome to hear Simon establishing the influence noting that both he and George Pelecanos took a film class on Westerns at the University of Maryland (I love details like that). I also came to understand the broader culture impact of Western movies thanks to a film class at UCLA. One of the deeply haunting moments in The Wild Bunch comes after the opening ambush scene when the children of the town are emulating the preceding carnage. It’s a scene I made a GIF of a few years ago on the bava.

In the aftermath of the shootout scene during this episode of The Wire, you have an almost identical moment with the kids from the neighborhood mimicking the violence, and arguing over whose turn it is to play at being Omar.

omar_kids_s03e03 01

Moments like this make The Wire magical for me, and to hear Simon note the influence Western films have on his series by tracing the lineage of urban crime fiction and films back to the Western is powerful and important. Allusions like this are a series of references that charts the course of a culture, and it’s our job to dig in and explore those relationships and recognize the evolution of themes like violence, class, and power through popular culture. This idea reinforces a lot of the work Paul and I have been doing over the last two years exploring connections between Hardboiled crime fiction, true crime, and now Wire 106 in the classes we’ve taught. It’s as if we’ve been drilling deeper and deeper into these themes that have found their contemporary apotheosis in The Wire. I guess Simon’s commentary and this discussion was really meaningful to me because all these different cultural allusions, critiques, and broader themes are starting to come together in my mind.

Wire 106: S03E02 “All Due Respect”

In this video discussion of episode 2 of Season 3 of the The Wire, “All Due Respect,” Paul and I were joined by Jessica Reingold who provided a clinic in close reading and thoughtful commentary. In my opinion, this is one of the all time great episodes of The Wire for a number of reasons, but foremost amongst them is the “paper bag for drugs” monologue by Bunny Colvin.

The episode is written by crime fiction writer Richard Price, and his commentary on this episode is excellent. It provide a look into the challenges of writing as part of a much longer series that has been created by various voices and visions. He notes that he felt like “Helen Keller on a snowboard in the Alps” when writing the back room dealings between politicians. He relied so heavily on the political beat reporter at the Baltimore-Sun he said he felt those scenes were written by someone else. He also noted that he “plagiarized” his own work 1992 novel Clockers for a couple of the scenes in this episode, namely the brilliant moment when Bodie and Poot run into Herc and Carver at the movies when they’re “off the clock.”

If you have the time, check out the DVD commentary on this episode with price, he talks about the brain trust of urban crime writers such as David Simon, George Pelecanos, and Dennis Lahane, amongst others, that came together to help make the writing of The Wire what it is.

Wire 106: Week 8 – Radio Days

Image credit: Sarah Kountz’s “Sing along with me — DS106 Radio”

This week will be dedicated almost entirely to working on and finishing the radio shows. To this end…

Blogging Radio Show Progress
Each member of the group will be required to blog about their progress on the radio show before Wednesday, October 15th. This is to clarify what your role has been and what you have contributed thus far. Be specific, discuss what you have done in terms of the conception, planning, audio creation, and editing has been. Also, this is the space where you can highlight any issues or problems. Paul and I don’t want any surprises when in comes to the show—if there are concerns we want to hear them sooner rather than later.

Tag this post “radioblog” (no quotes).

Radio Group Call
Each group needs to set up a meeting with us sometime before Saturday, October 18th, so we can talk on Google Hangouts or Skype about the radio show project as a group. You need to organize a few times your group can make it, no more than three, and we will meet to discuss where you are, listen to some pieces of the show, and generally make sure your groups is working together and on track.

Wire Episodes
Season 3, Episodes 2, 3 & 4.

Video Discussions of Episodes
Wednesday 3:00 PM Episode 2
Thursday 8:00 PM Episode 3
Friday 3:00 PM Episode 4

Sign-up for the video discussions here.

Daily Creates
Just to keep you in the habit, do one daily create this week.

Wire 106: S03E01 “Time After Time”

This week Wire 106 has been a bit hectic between my being away in NYC and then getting sick on my return. Which was further complicated by the fact we are now starting a two week odyssey into radio shows straddled across Fall Break. So, Paul and I decided to do the episode conversations this week by ourselves. This week we assigned Season 3, Episode 1 of The Wire, “Time After Time.” You can find our commentary for Episode 12 of Season 2 here.

David Simon and executive producer Nina Kostroff Noble provide commentary on episode 1 of season 3, and they raise a number of interesting points that we discuss. For example, Simon notes Marlo Stanfield’s drug war with Barksdale’s crew in season 3 parallels the insurgencies going on in Iraq asa result of the 2003 invasion. They also discuss the brilliant opening scene for season 3 which frames the theme of reform that will undergird the entire season. What’s more, it encapsulates a powerful indictment of reform, which is not only apparent in Bodie’s upbraiding of Poot’s constant visits to the clinic for the clap—but the 9/11esque smoke destruction in the streets of Baltimore. The episode’s title refers to a constant repetition of the same broken methods on the personal, local, national, and international scales. Season 3 is gonna be awesome.

Wire 106: S02E12 “Port in a Storm”

This week Wire 106 has been a bit hectic between my being away in NYC and then getting sick on my return. Which was further complicated by the fact we are now starting a two week odyssey into radio shows straddled across Fall Break. So, Paul and I decided to do the episode conversations this week by ourselves. This week we assigned Season 2, Episode 12 of The Wire, “Port in a Storm,” as well as the DVD commentary on this episode with producer Karen Thorson and editor Thom Zimny. So in this conversation we discuss both the final episode of Season 2 and their commentary.

What’s interesting about their discussion is how it turns out to be a eulogy for the executive producer, actor, and visual director of the series Robert Colesberry. He tragically died shortly after Season 2 ended due to complications during surgery. “Port in a Storm” was his directorial debut, on top of all the other work he did for the series up to that point. Both Thorson and Zimny laud his achievements, which include providing the series with its filmic vision. What I just discovered after quickly researching Thorson is that she was married to Colesberry, making her commentary on this episode that much more intense.

I’ll be sad to see season 2 go, but I still owe myself a post on the technology in Season 2. Wait for it…..

Wire106 audio ideas

Looking through past posts on the wire106 site, I found a bunch of ideas that people had posted, including Travis, Jeremy, Desa, Imran, Nicholas, Ien, Melinda, Danielle, and La Kisha. Most of them are already in groups. If you’re looking for a group and you like someone’s ideas, maybe you could ask if they can use some help. If you have some ideas and you’re looking for collaborators, put your ideas out there with a call for help. But let’s get this done today so everyone can get started.

Wire106 Week 7

We’re up to week 7 in Wire106. Jim is out on assignment and tailed a suspect up to NYC, so we don’t have a video for you this time. Here are the details for this week:

Audio week 1

Everyone should be part of a group at this time. If you are not in a group, get in one. Or let us know and we’ll put you in one. You are going to write and record a 20-30 minute audio production which will be broadcast on ds106radio. You have two weeks to work on your radio show. They will be broadcast at a date to be determined.

Here is the group info we have thus far:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Z9__ND3kuI0hg9nXi5ZRKkkqHcDwnvOf3sEryS5Ykw/edit?usp=sharing.
There are a lot of names missing from that list. Make sure your name is on it by the end of the day. There is a “Looking for a group” group for those who are looking for a group. If you have ideas for a show and don’t have a group yet, that’s a good place to find collaborators.

All group members should contribute. Suggestion: create a Google Doc for planning and collaboration. If you invite us to be part of it, we can offer advice and input. Blog about your process and progress.
Include radio bumpers and commercials – a couple of each
20-30 minute time length
The project should relate in some way to The Wire. How you go about that is up to you.
Each group member needs to do at least one promo poster/bumper sticker/logo etc. for their show this week. A little splash of design.
Keep the instructors apprised of your progress.

As you found out during Intro to Audio week, audio editing is time consuming. Plan to be done early and you will probably be done on time.

Audio resources:

Andy Rush’s http://audio.umwblogs.org as a resource for producing, editing, and generally working with audio.

The UMW digital knowledge center is available for individual and group tutorials for audio editing. You can schedule a tutorials for assignments and the radio show here: http://dkc.umwdtlt.org/tutoring/

You can find additional audio resources in the Open Ds106 syllabus (http://ds106.us/open-course/unit-7-advanced-audio/).

2 Daily Creates

Audio assignments – 10 stars

You can use your audio assignments to develop content for your radio show.

Episodes:

Season 2, episode 12
Season 2, episode 12 with commentary
Season 3, episode 1

The commentary on episode 12 comes from producer Karen Thorson and editor Thom Zimny. It’s a good behind-the-scenes companion piece to the Jen Ralston interview, discussing various storytelling techniques used in the episode and throughout the series.

I scheduled the commentary track for s2ep12 on ds106rad.io at 9PM on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, although you really should be watching the episode as you listen to it. In keeping with the commentary theme, David Simon’s commentary on the opening episode of season three will be on Thursday at 9PM.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I loved that western showdown scene between the police and the FBI. This part had GIF written all over it. I had the idea to put the three of them together, so I was careful to make all of them the same number of frames, with the same timing. Then I thought it would be better to do a rolling animation, like what I ended up with. It took me a while to think about how to do it. I started to write up the process, but the write-up was as tedious as doing it in the first place. If you want the details, let me know.

Once I had the GIF, I had to figure out what to do with it. I went looking for a design assignment and found Movies from Another Time and Animated Movie Posters. My image didn’t really fit either of them. I clicked the Remix It button and this came up:

Jump Shrimp
Find a completed assignment and create it’s oxymoron, something that is contradictory to what was made.

I had been thinking of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly anyway, what with the western theme, and the contradictory aspect made everything fall into place. Prez is good at some things, but in general he strikes me as a bad cop in the Martin Short sense, i.e. less than competent. Lester, on the other hand is good police. Bunk was born in a three piece suit, (almost) always dressed to the nines, so he could be the opposite of ugly.

For the text, I put together characters from The Wire and characters Leone’s movie, and used some of the behind the scenes names from The Wire. I did all the text in Garamond because it’s on Vignelli’s approved typeface list – actually it’s a versatile classic font.

I should note that my entire process here is pretty much the opposite of good design. Instead of designing something to fit the assignment, I’m trying to bend an assignment to fit my image. But so what.

Shenandoah’s Noir Issue Logo

SHENANDOAH_NOIR I’ve been working with the Shenandoah literary magazine for a while now, and next week they launch their noir issue. The editor, Rod Smith, asked me to try and come up with a logo/ad for Poetry Daily, and given it’s design week in ds106 I figured I would share what I did here.

If I were to be counting stars, this would be a one, maybe 2, star design assignment. Rather than creating my own logo, I went to The Noun Project and found this “Smoking” icon by Martin Vanco. It oozes noir, so I simply paid $1.99 for the rights to use it without attribution. After that, I grabbed the free Pulp Fiction font from dafont.com and combined the two in GIMP. In just a few quick steps, I had myself a quick and easy logo that looks fairly professional. All I had to do is arrange the pieces.

I think this is valuable lesson you might take from ds106: part of being to be an artist of and on the web is knowing where to find and how to recombine things. Making art isn’t only about creating, it’s also about knowing, connecting, and recombining what’s already out there. I should get at least 2 stars for knowing, right? And so should you if you now know

Wire 106: S02E11 “Bad Dreams”

For this video discussion of Season 2 Episode 11 of The Wire, “Bad Dreams,” Paul Bond and I were joined by UMW #wire106 internauts John Meadows and Ien Harris. Once again, the discussion was focused around screenshots from this episode we found interesting in relationship to design. I’m including the screenshots I shared below, although Paul, John, and Ien had several others as well.

One of the things that has struck me this week is just how closely everyone in wire106 is starting to read this series. The are picking up on broader visual motifs, background information about the actors, deep insights about politics, and more. What I am finding amazing about this version of #ds106 is that is its part digital storytelling class, part film class, and part literature class. It’s the best of all possible worlds. I couldn’t be happier with where it’s going, and the discussion sessions during the week give a small group from the larger course community the opportunity to get together in real time and share observations, ideas, and sense of occasion that is a powerful part of any class.

Another thing I enjoyed about this discussion was Ien’s idea when talking about the difference between visual and design elements—a distinction that often get blurry. He notes that design suggests intentionality, a sense of purpose. And this really starts to bring together what Paul and I have been harping on about all elements of this TV series, all the pieces matter. The design is crucial to the over arching argument it is making, a precisely articulated vision of the human costs of the post-industrial, US city under capitalism. It’s all in the design, yo!