Intro Sequence
The intro for each season follows the same animation using the Plexus plug in for After Effects.
In the foreground 'The Wire' appears and the camera moves through towards the season. The font used was 'HOLLYWOOD STARFIRE'.
The Wire: Season 1
Season 1 of The Wire focuses on the duality between the police and the drug dealers in Baltimore, while it is essentially a crime drama it goes above and beyond the norm.
Ultimately it is an account of life in an American city, the same issues can be seen throughout the country and indeed in other countries as well. It shows the institutional dysfunction and how all of us are compromised by and must contend with whatever institution we are committed to, be it the police force, a drug gang or dock worker it doesn't matter.
We are all part of the game and the game is rigged.
The Wire: Season 1 (2002)
The Wire: Season 2
This season is very intriguing, it seems fairly innocuous at first but becomes more violent as the
season progresses, more interesting, faster paced and much more dramatic and as such tragic. To reflect this I used the song Blood Run by Audiomachine, it is purely instrumental which meant I could easily mix quotes from the season over the trailer soundtrack. The song itself starts slow and ramps up as most trailers do.
season progresses, more interesting, faster paced and much more dramatic and as such tragic. To reflect this I used the song Blood Run by Audiomachine, it is purely instrumental which meant I could easily mix quotes from the season over the trailer soundtrack. The song itself starts slow and ramps up as most trailers do.
The Wire: Season 2 (2003)
The final scene features Frank Sabotka looking out over the waterfront, reflecting on his decisions, as if looking over the trailer itself digesting the violence and pressure that has built up over the course of the season.
The Wire: Season 3
Season 3 heads back to the streets and is one of the seasons most focused on violence, it is about reform and how inevitably nothing ever changes. Running with this theme is the storyline of a police supervisor legalising drugs in certain sectors of his district, this in turn would allow his force to make substantial arrests rather than waste all their time and energy on drug charges. Alongside this is a turf war between the Barksdale organisation and a new drug dealer named Marlo. The original trailer focused almost entirely on the turf war and made no mention of the attempt to legalise drugs, I made it my task to show the drug legalisation storyline in the trailer but to also show the turf war.
The Wire: Season 3 (2004)
By having effectively two story-lines in one trailer I decided to use two songs to create the audio
identity, both contrasting but fitting in tone. The first is 'Empty Streets' by Cyantific, this is mainly
an instrumental track with some vocals used to carry the tune, it is fairly ambient and allowed me to have the slower paced explanation and exposition of the legalising storyline in a manner that I don't feel is forced. The second track is 'Revolutionary Warfare' by Nas, this track is fitting to the season with the idea of reform and the turf war itself. It let me take clips from the season that focused on the idea of war both on the streets and with the police and use the lyric 'warfare' as a cue for the quote.
identity, both contrasting but fitting in tone. The first is 'Empty Streets' by Cyantific, this is mainly
an instrumental track with some vocals used to carry the tune, it is fairly ambient and allowed me to have the slower paced explanation and exposition of the legalising storyline in a manner that I don't feel is forced. The second track is 'Revolutionary Warfare' by Nas, this track is fitting to the season with the idea of reform and the turf war itself. It let me take clips from the season that focused on the idea of war both on the streets and with the police and use the lyric 'warfare' as a cue for the quote.
The Wire: Season 4
Season 4 is about education, as producer Ed Burns put it 'kids are going to learn, the only question is where.' The season starts up beat, with four young friends on the corner, as it progresses it becomes more and more dark and eventually becomes one of the most tragic and powerful series of the show. Within the season a mayoral race also takes place, I wanted to show aspects of the mayoral race alongside the lighter clips of the start of the season until the second part in which things take a decidedly dark turn.
The Wire: Season 4 (2006)
The original trailer for this season is very upbeat and makes no notion towards what is in store for the kids on the show I wanted to show this and to make the viewer uncomfortable between the contrast between our world and theirs.
The Wire: Season 5
Season 5 features an insight into the media and its role in all of this, however the primary storyline I wanted to show was the homicide detectives manufacturing murders in order to acquire funding for an illegal wire-tap investigation.
The Wire: Season 5 (2008)
For the final sequence of the trailer I used footage from the final episode of the city of Baltimore. The city itself is a character in it's own right and as such I included these scenes. They flick through extremely quickly, however due to the contrast of the moon and the night sky this shot sticks out amongst the others.
