The GIF assignment proved to be VERY challenging to create. I still haven’t mastered the skill of bringing the animation of it to life directly on my page, underestimating the time it would take to understand the process limited my ability to do this in a manner satisfying to me. It is something that will take further addressing to achieve and a skill I hope to attain with pursuing the GIF technique in the future!

Come @ the King, Bet not Miss! Was a revolving theme in The Wire episode 8, portraying a constant reminder that in the game on the streets there are parts delegated to all. Even the youngest pictured in the first GIF reminds the watcher how essential it is to keep count even with shaky math skills. With being a peon or soldier of the streets one is careful not to cross the expectations of the King!

But what when crossing the King. You’ll surely be reminded and checked by reality. With attempting to side hustle Avon, Orlando has his coat pulled notoriously. The message is given to stay in pocket as Avon has delegated his position to be liquor license holder and no more.

Though even with elevating the game to a higher class status there are pawns to be kept in place and ordered to fall back in ranks, seen here with Daniels as he is consistently reprimanded for violating. In the next GIF the story tells of political corruption permitted to run amuck.

Even higher ranked individuals such as Stringer, seen in this next GIF has the task of controlling with the legit front put in place to minimize the activities under the control of Avon. He has to run a tight ship to keep speculation off of the matters handled in the streets of Baltimore. Here he reminds the crew that unlike the streets, the printing business is to mimic that of an official business apart from the true business of running a drug ring.

Finally we get the true meaning of coming at a player in the streets without preparing properly for the ramifications as Omar so stealthily reminds WeBey in this OK Corral shooting with the whistle from death. What is to become his signature caveat that one would be dealt with when missing the opportunity to seal the deal. A reckoning I’m sure as Stinkum is doomed to find out of.

So this week, we were assigned to make 6 gifs to summarize an episode from The Wire. I decided to make gifs from Episode 9 “Gameday.”

The episode starts off where Stringer and Barksdale are talking about Omar. They know he’s been starting his own little drug ring in their territory. But they also know that if they send someone for him, he’ll know before they even get to him. So they are stuck between a rock and a hard place in regards to Omar.

After the title scene the shot goes to De’Angelo and Wallace talking. This is the first time we see Wallace’s need to get out of the drug circle. He wants to finish high school.I really like Wallace. He’s definitely a good kid who just got caught up in the wrong crowd.

Now this part of the episode is hysterical but it also has a sad connotation to it as well. Here Bubbles is swiping a stash. He almost gets away with it too. I find this part really funny because of his Macgyverlike skills to grab the bag. But once he gets caught, he runs away but unfortunately/ fortunately, another guy is “caught” leaving him to escape. Bubbles also just went to rehab to attempt to get clean. Clearly it doesn’t last very long.

After Bubble’s adventure getting his new stash, Kima and Lester attempt to get to one of Orlando’s girls, Shardene. They want her to become an informant within the case to help further the case along. As a way to sway her to their side they have her go identify a friend of hers from the club at the morgue. They aren’t getting much input from her quite yet but eventually she sides with the detectives.

Then the big game happens. It is the east side vs. the west side. Ellis and Herc are out patrolling. It seems too quiet, as they pull up to the basketball court they realize why its so quiet. The scene continues and Barksdale is bantering back and forth with Proposition Joe. The west side coach offers Barksdale a deal. Barksdale accepts but little does he know that he will be hustled by Joe. As Ellis and Herc are watching the game they come across two of D’Angelo’s dealers. “We’re on break. Yeah well so are we.” I really love this quote because its like a game of basketball brought them together even though they are from completely different worlds.

Towards the end of the episode, Lt. Daniels pages Herc and Ellis because there was a serious mix up. Some how during a raid, two stacks of money were lost. Here this gif shows both of them tearing apart their car to find the money because the lieutenant gave them an ultimatum for them to come up with the money. “You have until roll call tomorrow morning to crawl back to whatever rock you hid it under.” I found this part very interesting because of the way the director set the scene up. First shows trash begin flung out of the trunk. Then you see an empty box of Dunkin Donuts hit the ground. You can also feel the panic set in on both Herc and Ellis. Then there is the release of tensions when Ellis finds the money in the wheel well of their patrol car.

I really liked this episode because it had a great sense of drama between the basketball game, the picking up of Shardene, the money bust done by Ellis and Herc and even the heartbreak to see what Wallace is going through.

This week I decided to summarize episode 6 called “The Wire.” I feel like this episode is extremely important to the series. Creating the GIF’s this week was a first for me. I have always seen these on websites and what not but I never had any idea of how they were made. At first I was overwhelmed with the process to get the media content I needed as well as figuring out how GIMP worked. It was a great experience learning how to make them. I look forward to make better and cooler ones in the future.

My first GIF is from the beginning of the episode. In the previous episode Wallace saw Omar’s boy Brandon and called D’Angelo. Avon’s men obviously took care of Brandon in hope of getting back at Omar. Wallace saw this right outside where he sleeps and feels horrible about what happened. I though it was interesting that he felt bad because he knew what was going to happen when he called D’Angelo. Wallace wanted to turn him in because it made him look good within the drug business but now feels bad about it. I am curious as to if he had another opportunity if Wallace would turn him in?

Bubbles was trying to do good until Johnny came by the food stand he was working at. Johnny was just released from medical care and his first thought it how to get high. They planned out a con to steal copper pipes and then sell them. It just shows how bad these guys need to get high and why the drug dealers in Baltimore have so much control.

Going along with the con is the process of Bubbles and Johnny actually selling the copper. Bubbles first asks the contractor to pay 40 cents a foot and the contract doesn’t want to buy it. Bubbles puts on his best salesmen act and negotiates with the contractor. In the end the contractor and Bubbles agree to a cost of 30 cents a foot. I chose this section for 2 reasons. First, it once again shows how bad these addicts need to get high. They literally do whatever is needed to get enough money to get high. Secondly, the contractor seems to be a well established working man yet he buys this stolen copper. He is enabling these druggies to get high.

When McNulty saw Omar’s boy dead on that car he knew he could use this to his advantage. He finds Omar’s car and leave his business card. Omar calls McNulty on a night that he has his kids. He takes Omar up on this offer even though he doesn’t see his kids a lot. This shows how McNulty is a workaholic. He is an addict himself just in a different way. His “high” is being on the job trying to figure out whatever case he has at the time.

McNulty takes Omar to the morgue to show him Brandon’s body. I knew that Omar was going to get revenge. This scene shows that even a guy like Omar who shoots people like its nothing has feelings and cares about certain people.

Finally, the scene that was a turning point in the detectives cases. Getting Omar on their side or at least getting him to answer questions and get some info from him helped take the case to the next level.

Episode 2 sets the standard for the way of life on the street. “Fuck right. It’s ain’t about right, it’s about money.”

It’s quite amazing how I made a GIF. I’ve always seen on facebook and other social media websites of people making GIF and I always thought like when will I be able to make one. I didn’t know making a GIF would be that hard. All I did was to follow the steps from this link: http://ds106.us/docs/Creating_Animated_GIFs_with_MPEG_Streamclip_and_GIMP

It isn’t that bad. I downloaded MPEG Streamclip and GIMP. I downloaded the first episode of The Wire from the media hub and followed the steps of what Professor Groom showed us which was basically going to the video and clicking the download icon. Then in the link, I went and followed the steps. I went to the scenes and clicked in the beginning of those scenes “Select in” and “select out” at the end of the scenes that I wanted to make my GIF. Then after that, I click “Trim”. I then click “Export to other formats”. From there, I saved it in a file and went to the program GIMP.

At the program GIMP, I clicked “File” then “Open as layers” and then I selected all of the images.  When I added text, on the other side I merged them with the pictures but before that I made a duplicate of the text so I can merge it with the pictures. After that, I clicked “Export as” and then I put it as a “.gif” post.  I as well put it as an animation post. That’s how I made it as a GIF. So I chose the first episode of season 1 of The Wire.  A lot of people did the other episodes. I felt like episode 1 was a better choice and that’s my opinion.  Plus so far no one did it. Here are my reasons below:

In this GIF, it shows Gant testifying that D’Angelo is indeed guilty for his crimes that he did which was murdering someone. I liked this scene because this showed particularly that we all know that there are more than 1 season of The Wire and D’Angelo wouldn’t go to jail yet. Something indeed was going to happen.

In this GIF, this is where The Wire begins. Nakeesha Lyles changes the story by saying the man (D’Angelo Barksdale) who murdered the man isn’t there in court. That changed the whole story and what I believe started and made this TV show The Wire interesting.

This scene to me particularly is quite interesting to me because I never seen McNulty apologize before. I mean of course it’s the big boss he’s apologizing too but I mean watching all the other episodes, I never seen him like this before in this particular scene. But afterwards, he goes and investigates this case.

This scene shows that even though D’Angelo is free, he can’t keep talking stuff that can get him in jail. Everyone knows he killed that man. He’s lucky that his buddy told him not to talk because who knows, the car could have been wire taped and it would have caught him confessing to the murder.

In this specific scene, I thought this made the TV series more series when they showed the witness that testified against D’Angelo dead. When I saw D’Angelo seeing Gant dead, he just walks away. To me, that looks guiltiness right there. I didn’t expect Gant to be dead. When it shows he got shot in the head, the show gotten better because like I said before, this is not a regular tv cop show about winning or losing, it’s more about each sides.

This weeks assignment for DS106 was to create GIFs to summarize an episode of The Wire. When I first read this I was both nervous and excited. I had never made a GIF, didn’t know where they came from, and had no idea how I could summarize an hour-long episode in six or less GIFs.

For this assignment, I chose episode seven “One Arrest.” I really enjoyed this episode because there was a lot of action.

The episode begins with the Prez decoding a message with information of a resupply. The police end up arresting Kevin Johnston. This scene is important because it really shows progress. Many times when I watch this show I get bored because everyone is just sitting around listening and waiting. This episode proved me wrong.

The next big event in the episode was when Johnny and Bubbles attend the Narcotics Anonymous. During the meeting, Bubbles stands up and gets a 24 hour pin. While watching this, I was really happy. He looked like he really wanted to change. In a following episode (I think it was episode 10), Bubbles stole what he thought was cocaine. I was really disappointed with him. I had thought he wanted to change.

The next important scene is where D gets the offer to sell cocaine behind Avon’s back. I found this scene to be foreshadowing in a way. If D’Angelo takes the offer, that could really mess up the case. The police unit could get confused with the drug flows. D could also face fatal consequences if Avon were to find out.

When Stringer gets nervous that the police are onto them, he mandates the men to rip out the payphone and gives them rules for future contact. This means that the police unit will need to find other ways to watch them and keep a closer eye on their movements.

A reoccurring theme in this show is the brutality the police show towards the perps. This theme is evident in this episode when the police beat Bird Hilton. After he refuses to cooperate and shares nasty remarks towards the police, they rip up his picture and begin beating him. This just shows that the police force is willing to do anything to get answers regardless of rules.

As the episodes go on, I am getting more and more into them. I am excited to see what happens next!

I loved this assignment! If you all could have seen the happy dance I did when I made my first gif. I find this class very rewarding when I’m able to create things I never knew how. I chose episode 3, The Buys for this assignment. I feel like these 6 gifs are able to sum up the episode pretty well. We learn how most of the characters fall within the power ranks and some of the details of how “the game” works. Enjoy!