Inside HBOs The Wire

I'm not sure how I missed this at the time (2007) but Inside HBOs The Wire is an interesting look at some of the technical details of filming a TV show.

"So what major differences does Joe Chappelle see between directing a show like The Wire versus a wildly popular mainstream series like CSI Miami? He was very frank in his reply. "For CSI Miami there's a formula. It would be like this: you do your masters in 18mm, big wide masters with the characters small in the frame and then, when you go into your coverage, nothing wider than a 75. On a show like CSI we would never, or at least rarely, use anything between an 18 and a 75 -- 18 and wider or 75 and longer. That's the style. It was always super-wide head to toe and then waist-up. Rarely would we ever do a shot from knees up. And we'd always have two cameras rolling. The A camera was waist-up and the B camera would be right next to it doing that (he demonstrates very tight framing of his face with his hands). That was the coverage. In terms of lighting, CSI Miami is very colorful, but in terms of camera it's very simple. Big wide master then super long lens coverage. And the more you're outside the longer (the lens) you can go. In terms of a show it was very rigorous. There was a formula and, as a director you're expected to fill that formula."

"The Wire is the opposite of this formulaic approach. It's very loose and well, there really isn't a formula, instead there's a lot of room for interpretation. Be it handheld, long lenses, whatever. We're cowboys, using focal lengths of our own choosing," chuckles Chappelle. "There's a tremendous latitude built into the aesthetic of the show, so we have choices. The DP has choices, the Director has choices, whatever helps build that moment, we're given that latitude. We can work with a wide assortment of lenses. In primes we have a 17.5, a 21, a 35, a 50, a 75, a 100, a 150 as well as some long zooms. Handhelds would usually be 35 and wider, but we might go with a 75 or a hundred if there's not a lot of moving around." Only a few times in the show's first four years have crane shots been employed. "It's not that anything is or isn't the look of the show, more a case of there not being hard and fast rules.""