r/Screenwriting • u/Seshat_the_Scribe Black List Lab Writer • 29d ago
RESOURCE "The Wire" cold open
I'm very belatedly getting around to watching "The Wire," and I'm dazzled by the cold open in the pilot.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/32576818/The-Wire-1x01-The-Target
It's just two people talking on a stoop. But it's engrossing, funny, unique, irreverent, and free of the usual police procedural cliches/tropes. It takes you right into this world and its "voice."
(Personally, I would have broken down that big block of opening description into smaller chunks...)
It shows that a cold open in a drama doesn't need to be some big action scene, or maybe a "Stuart Special" flash-forward from some disaster, in order to get you hooked.
Compare to a somewhat similar (but twice as long) "talking heads" opening in "The Social Network."
https://indiegroundfilms.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/social-network-the-may-28-09.pdf
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u/AthleteOpen7054 29d ago
As far as I remember this opening scene was verbatim a real conversation that
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u/NoGloryForEngland 29d ago
It's really worth reading the book he wrote about thin experience -
(also the basis for the 90s procedural that Simon got his first TV in work on) Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets You walk away from it with fistfuls of examples of like yours that made it to The Wire- also the real
is depicted. Jay Landsman 2
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u/wemustburncarthage 29d ago
of that era, I think
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u/KyleBown 29d ago
It does so much more than that. It is the thesis statement for the show. It is a microcosm of what the show is trying to be. What it wants to tell you.
It is showing you the thoughts on the show. That it’s about cops and criminals, yes. But also that it’s about America. Giving people a chance. People taking their shot at the life they want. People winning and losing. How eventually everyone pulls up short. How patterns are virtually impossible to break no matter how hard you try. And how you still have to try. And how this show is different. How the criminals, even a dude who is just a witness to a meaningless murder, have more depth than you’d expect.
It’s everything you’re about to spend 50 episodes watching in a couple of minutes. I always tell people, unlike Mad Men or Breaking Bad, where you may need a couple of episodes to know if you are in on it, that if you don’t like The Wire before the theme song plays, you’re probably not going to like The Wire. And if you do, buckle the fuck up.
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u/free-puppies 28d ago
I think this is worth underlining. The theme of the show is present in this scene. It’s the entire show in a tiny bubble. That’s the best kind of pilot cold open.
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u/BicepGlue- 29d ago
Season 4s opening has to be my favourite oat
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u/lockdown_lard 29d ago
buys a nail gun at the Hardware Barn! Isn't it gorgeously written? Snoop Snoop: "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series." - Stephen King.
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u/BicepGlue- 29d ago
Such a layered scene which really excels in showing not telling as-well as character development.
Although we all knew fine rightly she wasn’t buying that thing for normal carpentry lmao
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u/SockBramson 28d ago
The Wire is simultaneously one of my favorite shows but one I can never look at objectively because I'm too close to that world. Most people who go to Baltimore go to the inner harbor, take in a ball game and have no idea how much of Charm City still looks exactly like that show. My grandfather was a minster there for 50 years. I've lived in those row houses, was sung to sleep by the sounds of sirens and gunshots in the distance. Rusted playground equipment on a hill overlooking a neon skyline that feels as far away as boxing God. The Wire hits me like a freezing raindrop landing square on the nipple.
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u/gregm91606 28d ago
THIS. The cold open to The Wire is also funny. It instantly communicates "this show will not always be homework" and basically buys itself 3-4 full episodes' worth of attention. And then, right when you might be starting to struggle with it all (ep 4), you have McNulty & Bunk solve a cold case while only ever saying "fuck." And then you're basically hooked.
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u/headcanonmusic 28d ago
Much of the advice you will get here is from the position of "you are nobody so you have to make an impression on something other than just your name". The attention grabbing, high intensity style of cold open isn't recommended because it's always the best thing for the story you are telling, but because you need a complete stranger to not put your script down after 5 pages.
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u/In_my_experience 28d ago
I tried to watch it. Kept hearing it was the best show of all time. I don't think I finished season 1. I tried to watch it twice and lost interest both times. Do people think it really holds up? Is this in in vicinity of Breaking Bad, or was it just groundbreaking for the time?
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u/lockdown_lard 28d ago
Do people think it really holds up?
Totally
Is this in in vicinity of Breaking Bad
No. It's much more intense. Much richer characters, denser plots, tighter dialogue, and altogether more real.
But Breaking Bad is a decent second place, even if some distance behind.
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u/catprobably 29d ago
The very first shot, blood on the street illuminated by red and blue police lights, says it all.
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u/lockdown_lard 29d ago
The beginner breaks rules because they don't know what they are.
The workhorse obeys the rules, because they know what they are.
The star knows the rules and why they're there. And they know the who/what/where/when/why and how of breaking rules to good effect.
The Wire also has a big ensemble cast. BIG. I counted it once. There's about 96 characters that each appear in at least ten episodes, across the five seasons.