i mean anyone who would make the claim that the wire COULDN'T be GOAT because it wasn't in 16:9 or HD is obv trolling.

obv i prefer watching things in 16:9 and HD, but my opinion of the show isn't based on the format its shot in.

Come on, making a show distributed by HBO in 4:3 SD in 2008 was pretty ridiculous. Like 16:9 HD is just better watching at home. Like exactly no one would have been "hmmmmmm I just think the verisimilitude was so much better in 4:3 SD". People are only defending the choice because it's a choice that Simon made, so it has to be correct.

Why not? I probably knocked the Wire down to number 5 because it looks pretty bad compared to Mad Men, which is beautifully shot. I mean it's logically possible to say that The Wire COULD be the greatest show while being handicapped by its presentation, but it would have to be that much better than if it had been presented in HD. Certainly it is appropriate to knock off some points for that, right?

No, it isn't.

Why not?

Why would it?

Do you take points off Citizen Kane and Casablanca for not being shot in HD?

Because visual style and appearance is part of what makes a TV show good, particularly in the age of large HD TVs. Put another way, of course the striking visuals of Mad Men and Breaking Bad help set them apart from other shows.

They are both in HD. 4:3 HD, but HD nonetheless.

Amazing coincidence, but yesterday I was talking to a friend who is doing a post doc in the Physics department at MIT. Apparently a few of their researches have proved conclusively that 4:5 is the best aspect ratio for TV and that Breaking Bad is exactly the 7th (!) best Drama in television history (apparently OP forgot all about MASH, Charlie's Angels and Cop Rock btw). Publication forthcoming. So basically, LOL @ all of you.

I assume you're trolling but I want to go on the record and say I think the MIT physics department should be universally accepted as the authority on all things artistic.

Whoa whoa let's not jump to any crazy assumptions here

That was actually my most sincere post itt

C'mon, that's hardly a fair and accurate representation of the case.

The decision to broadcast the Wire in 4:3 SD was probably made in 2001, or 2002 at the latest. In 2002, DTV market penetration in the US was less than 1% of operating sets. In contrast, when BB first went to air, widescreen TVs were in a majority of US households. But I suspect you are not taking that into account.

In 2002, a show presented in 16:9 screamed avant-garde, futuristic, or at least up-to-date. I sincerely doubt this was an image that Simon wanted for his show. His take was retrospective. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted a look similar to TV news, which to nearly everybody then meant 4:3.

Just as likely, Simon may have felt that the broadcast aspect ratio was unimportant. In any event, unlike MM and BB, visual style for style's sake was not part of what the show was about.

Simon was telling a story about the recent past in a part of Baltimore that was being held back. So, yeah, eschewing the latest visual tech does improve the flavour Simon is trying to give it (IDK if that is necessarily verisimilitude though).

Citizen Kane was shot in 4:3 and in B&W. How many spots did you knock it down? Criticizing The Wire for being in 4:3 SD is like criticizing van Gogh for being less realistic than Vermeer or Millet. You have a particular taste which doesn't coincide with the style of the artist's work. That doesn't make the work any less objectively good. As I said in a much earlier post, TW is firmly in the social realism art movement. The values you cite, present in MM and BB, are antithetical to that style. In SR, one goes out of the way to avoid having a shot looking like one is striving for visual style (of course this is a style all its own).

IDK whether Simon deliberately strove to have a visual style so firmly assoicated with a particular art movement. (Certainly his subject matter was deliberately within the scope of the movement.) Consequently IDK whether the choices regarding visual presentation were conscious or merely by default because they didn't matter to the show. But either way, they are more consistent with the tone of the work as a whole.

Shooting with a wider aspect ratio in mind would have forced different decisions about composition, lighting, set design, etc. The show would not have been "just the same" except for a wider, sharper picture. And there is no reason to believe that the resulting differences would have been improvements.

Let's consider the appropriateness of aspect ratio to visual subject matter for a bit. Widescreen is best for big landscapes, like one gets in Arizona, or whereever BB was shot. Have you noticed that MM has virtually no exterior shots? It is about a firm in downtown NYC, but there are no shots of its skyscraper environment. That's because with widescreen, if you want to show the whole height of a tall building, you have to show so many other buildings that your main subject is lost in the woods. Also, it is harder to get an unobstructed shot. MM's landscapes are boardrooms, spacious offices and big residential interiors, again all well suited to widescreen. The visual subject matter of The Wire is quite different. Widescreen doesn't work nearly as well on single apartment towers, container cranes, abandoned steel mills, cramped offices, doorways and dark alleys.

Yes. But less logical to say it IS.

"That much" is a very small amount, because the extra resolution doesn't affect artistic worth of a work in this style nearly as much as you think it does.

Not to the extent that they make a material difference to relative rankings, no.

Sopranos was forward-thinking enough to switch from SD in season one to HD in season 2. People in the industry knew what the future of TV was in 2000, and certainly by 2002.

So...if Simon were making the Wire today it would be not ridiculous for him to release it in 4:3 SD? I mean network shows like ER made the switch to HD format around 2000-2001, and ER was filmed all through the 1990s with thought towards HD in syndication in future years. You can dress it up any way you want, but Simon made a deliberate choice to release The Wire in an inferior format.

Citizen Kane was shot in 4:3 and B&W because of technological and bureaucratic hurdles. Maybe Welles actually preferred the 4:3 aspect ratio, I don't know, but it was impossible to make a picture with a different aspect ratio at the time. And SD vs HD isn't a matter of taste; SD is like objectively worse than HD. If you put up a SD version of Citizen Kane on my 46 inch TV it will look like crap. If you put on the Citizen Kane Blue-Ray it will look great.

Yeah I disagree that the subject matter of The Wire is like inherently more amenable to 4:3 ratio from a composition standpoint. Something like an abandoned steel mill seems like it would be more impactful in widescreen. Think about that shot of Frank and Nicky arguing in front of the grain elevators. Them being framed in the foreground by more of the rotting post-industrial wasteland of Baltimore harbor would have been a better shot imo. There's just a lot more that can be done with HD and a widescreen aspect ratio imo.

It's kind of funny that you can make more or less the exact same argument Senor Keeed and others are making re: the objective improvement superior visual presentation would have made to The Wire about Breaking Bad, but in terms of writing quality.

Friday Night Lights GOAT

Good Actors, Hot Actresses, Awesome storyline. What more can you ask?

I've never watched these series: Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Friday Night Lights, The Shield, Deadwood, The West Wing

which should i watch first? leaning towards Game of Thrones or Deadwood.

Deadwood

itt we learn that seurat and lichtenstein are objectively bad artists for painting in SD

If broadcasting a tv show in SD is like an interesting and useful artistic choice, I'm sure we will continue to see shows released in that format, right?

To be fair, Lichtenstein could have switched to acrylics much earlier.

Read Game of Thrones before watching the show imo

Of course the Sopranos adopted 16:9 HD. The show was self-consciously cutting edge. It made perfect sense to go with HD. The Wire is not that show.

I think it must be virtually impossible today to make what is intended to be a ratings success on an American cable channel in any aspect ratio narrower than 16:9 That has nothing to do with the best fit of aspect ratio to subject matter, but rather is dictated by the current mix of display devices in use, current broadcast standards, and audience expectations.

Somebody made a deliberate choice, but do we know it was Simon?

<sigh> We need to distinguish between two different thigns here: resolution and aspect ratio. Greater resolution (within the range of choices we're talking about) almost always produces clearer images. So yeah, HD is better than SD for the display of television images. A wider aspect ratio is not inherently better for all possible images. For the sorts of things that get broadcast on TV, widescreen is better than 4:3 more often than not, but it is not always better. I've already addressed some of the reasons why it may not have been been the best aesthetic choice for TW.

As a still photographer, I use a camera with a fixed 3:2 aspect ratio sensor. However, when I prepare a photo for print, I can crop it to any aspect ratio I choose. My choice is dictated by the subject matter, not by my display medium. Photographic paper doesn't come in just one shape, and it can be easily modified with a cutting tool. If I had to always print at 3:2, my creativity would be severely limited. If I had to always print at 16:9 it would be even more limited.

Except for a very short period, TV producers/directors had no choice about the aspect ratio in which their product was broadcast. Only a lucky few, those shooting between about 1999 and 2006 had any choice. Each option had its advantages and disadvantages. Are you even aware of what the disadavantages are when shooting in HD 16:9 rather than SD 4:3?

But, but, but... it will have thick black vertical bands on either side of the screen, and it won't have any colour. Don't you have to take points off for that? Wouldn't CK have looked better in widescreen?

Yeah, I can tell you've had a lot of practical experience with visual composition.

If you are trying to show its isolation (assuming it is isolated), then sure. That's not the sort of shot I'm talking about.

Nice cliché. That's not a shot of a steel mill. That's a shot of two people arguing. And while we're on the subject, widescreen enhances distance confrontation but makes it harder to frame close confrontation.

Actually, there are a lot fewer things that can be done with a widescreen aspect ratio than with a squarer aspect ratio. The farther the shape is from a square, the more limited are the choices.

I listed about a half-dozen types of subject that would most often benefit from being shot with a squarer aspect ratio. Some would even benefit more from a vertically-oriented frame.

Dexter is # 1 to me but for the list the OP gave I would probably vote for either Sopranos or Mad Men. If you are into classy things like smoking cigs indoors and the grand ole times of the 60's then watch Mad Men. its such a brilliant show

Also ER needs more love itt