Shots in "The Wire"

   The use of camera angles and shots is very important when looking at a piece of film, and as an example of different shots I decided to use the final scene from the first season of "The Wire". In this scene, the character Omar Little robs a drug dealer of his stash. Dr. Ramirez-burg discussed that the typical flow of shots is Long Shot, then Medium Shot, then close up, yet pieces of film will break this mold and go in their own order. This scene from "The Wire" specifically goes from Medium Shot, to Close Up, then to Long Shot.

   The Medium Shot can be seen in the picture shown above. Dr. Ramirez-burg described the Medium Shot as an "information shot", meaning that it is the most informative and shows the relationships between different characters. If you were a viewer of "The Wire", you would know that if there are two people dressed in baggy clothing that looked like thugs on the corner of a street, you would know that a drug deal was going down. This Medium Shot being used here thus lets the viewer know that there is going to be a drug deal between the two characters, and their relationship is nothing more than that of a salesman and a customer.

   The next shot used is a Close Up, which can be seen above, is of Omar revealing himself to the drug dealer and putting a gun to his head. The lecture emphasized that Close Ups were used heavily to display the emotions of the characters, which can easily be seen in this picture. From the Medium Shot, the viewer had known that the mysterious hooded fellow was the beloved Omar, but it isn't until he pulls back his hood and pulls out is gun to show how much he loves catching drug dealers off guard and 'obtaining' their stashes from them. This shot is great and very well used because it shows Omar's feelings toward his actions with him saying in this shot "[It's] all in the game yo, all in the game".

   This scene (and the episode/season) ends with the Long Shot shown above. Dr. Ramirez-burg defined a Long Shot as an "Orientation Shot", and that it was used to display the isolation or loneliness of the characters. The use of this Long Shot in "The Wire" is to show that there is no hope for the drug dealer because nobody is around, and that Omar will once again succeed in stealing all of the drugs from a stash-house, and that the drug trade in the show's Baltimore is still very alive.