'The Wire'

[Tom]

I've just started watching season 1 of this series.

It rocks.

Its just as dramatic and sometimes as unfathomable as other HBO dramas, but its gritty, has a great story, there are boobies (including lesbian boobies), and the music is very cool.

In fact the music at the end credits on season 1 is so cool, I would like to listen to it properly.

Anyone know what its called?

 

[Mobius]

"The Fall," composed by Blake Leyh.

I want to watch this too.

 

[JingleBells]

Hmm, I might look at this, that Charlie Brooker chappy said it was the best thing on US TV

 

[Tom]

Its fooking brilliant mate. Takes 2-3 episodes to get into but its very very good. Up there with The Sopranos for sure.

 

[Tom]

"The Fall," composed by Blake Leyh.

I want to watch this too.

Ta!

 

[Tom]

Thanks Mobius, heres the track:

http://www.blakeleyh.com/mp3/the-wire-excerpt.mp3

Its bloody brilliant. An album of that stuff please! Pity he doesn't seem to sell his music

 

[Jimmae]

lesbian boobies you say?

i shall go and find a torrent!

ta

 

[cHodAX]

Bubbies?!?! I am sold

 

[Yaka]

this series does in deed rock, not long till the new series start so get all the eps watched

 

[Tom]

Season 4 of this starts 10/9/06 I've just finished watching season 3, christ its good.

 

[Tom]

Oh dear. Seems like somebody sent out DVD screeners of the entire 4th season, and somebody else leaked all of them onto bittorrent sites

 

[JingleBells]

ARGH I have no internet at home yet

I'm halfway through s3 now, it's fucking ace, cheers to Tom (and Charlie Brooker ofc) for recommending this.

I love how you start to feel for the "baddies", esp when they are bumped off

 

[adams901]

what episode are the boobies in

 

[Will]

Somewhere in Series 1. It isn't about the boobies, you'd be better finding some proper pr0n.

 

[Tom]

FYI:

http://usvsth3m.com/post/the-king-stay-the-king

 

[Nate]

I really enjoyed this series, I found the ending a bit rushed though, need to re-watch it as I wasn't really sure what the fuck was going on! So I got out of there, fast.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdEBsIOclss

 

[caLLous]

I read about this last week, including David Simon's interesting blog post on the process. I distinctly remember him saying that it was filmed how it was filmed for aesthetic reasons and it would never be widescreened and remastered. It's without doubt one of the greats (if not *the* great) so I suppse it was inevitable that they would try and get a bit more revenue out of it. It will be interesting to see it in its new form but I'm not really fussed. I have the DVD box set and it looks like shit sometimes (compared to modern glistening HD stuff) but it suits the style of the show.

 

[megadave]

I've been wanting to rewatch it for months, but heard HD was coming so i've been patiently waiting.

 

[leggy]

26th December it's being aired by HBO. *prepares 'method' of collection*

I've been looking for a reason to re-watch and I almost bought the DVD boxset last week (in digital version). Glad I held off.

 

[caLLous]

It will be a Blu-ray set worth owning if they make more supplemental features, not if they just wang the new episodes on some discs with the old SD stuff (not that there was a lot of extra content on the DVD set tbh).

 

[ECA]

I'm glad it's getting a re-release but if it was shot on 4:3 then they'll be cropping... and you'll actually lose space, I'd rather they just rereleased in 4:3 but actually made it decent quality, it was shockingly shit quality even on broadcast.

 

[Jupitus]

I'm glad it's getting a re-release but if it was shot on 4:3 then they'll be cropping... and you'll actually lose space, I'd rather they just rereleased in 4:3 but actually made it decent quality, it was shockingly shit quality even on broadcast.

Did you not read the link Tom provided ?

 

[caLLous]

Did... did you read it? It was shot in 16:9 but with 4:3 framing in mind so they're going to do it in widescreen but use CGI to get rid of any unwanted stuff either side.

 

[ECA]

Well now you said that I did, so yeah they're just cropping for 16:9, what a load of wank.

 

[ECA]

Did... did you read it? It was shot in 16:9 but with 4:3 framing in mind so they're going to do it in widescreen but use CGI to get rid of any unwanted stuff either side.

Did you? I just did, it says they shot in 4:3.

 

[caLLous]

Did you? I just did, it says they shot in 4:3.

Originally the programme was filmed on 35mm film cameras, which actually capture the image in the widescreen format we’re now used to. But they deliberately framed the picture they were shooting in the 4:3 square format, which meant that there was redundant space either side of the main picture.

It was filmed in widescreen and then cropped to 4:3 which presumably means there are 16:9 masters in existence. They framed it in 4:3, they didn't film it in 4:3.

(although further down it does say they will be cropping some scenes but not because they have to, just so the scenes make more sense)

 

[old.Osy]

He can read between the lines if he wants to. Or skip them all together. It's his right to.

on topic: This is very good news, even if it's just them milking the cow some more. Relevant to my interests, et al.

 

[ECA]

It was filmed in widescreen and then cropped to 4:3 which presumably means there are 16:9 masters in existence. They framed it in 4:3, they didn't film it in 4:3.

(although further down it does say they will be cropping some scenes but not because they have to, just so the scenes make more sense)

It doesn't say that.

It shows some examples for 16:9 ->4:3 cropping from other series, it says they shot in 4:3.

And here's quote from David Simons blog that is linked in that article:

Nina Noble and I were told a year ago that HBO wanted to experiment with taking The Wire, filmed in standard definition and a 4:3 ratio

 

[Raven]

They are cropping some scenes because they wouldn't look very good if they simply added a bit each side to 4.3.

...and before viz's own Mr logic moans, by adding, I mean taking from the original 16:9 35mm source.

 

[caLLous]

It doesn't say that.

It shows some examples for 16:9 ->4:3 cropping from other series, it says they shot in 4:3.

And here's quote from David Simons blog that is linked in that article:

I disagree but I've re-read it and it's not 100% clear either way, but I still think I've read it right.

The way I read it they're saying they shot it in widescreen, but with their 4:3 hats on so they weren't bothered by what happened either side of the 4:3 frame because they knew they were going to crop it down. Now they're going back to source and having to clean up the bits either side with CGI to make it work (or crop in to 16:9 for problematic scenes). You can see in the examples used (on that site and in Simon's blog) of the scene with Wee Bey (and the dock scene).




I don't know where that extra information either side of the 4:3 shot came from unless they originally shot it in 16:9 (because the frames seem to be of the same height). I've just checked that scene on the original DVD to make sure they weren't trying to pull a fast one by reframing the "original" 4:3 shot but it's identical.

I too saw Simon saying it was shot in SD and 4:3 which makes it all the more confusing tbh.