Absolutely, David Simon's The Wire is one of the greatest and ambitious TV Series in History. This Tremendous Series makes us believe that TV Medium is not as cheap as much as Motion Pictures. Due to The Well maintained script and depth details, makes The Wire is more special than Other Series. That Question crosses to my mind that How Simon create this real world? How much he spends his time to create this? I like TV and I really interested in making a series like the wire. The city and Country that I lived, it struggles the catastrophic problems which are the similar the Baltimore Problems in the wire; The Drug, Corruption (For Example in Soccer), Racism ......in some parts of the town and.... so is it possible to make a TV Series like The Wire?
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it's not impossible but David Simon was a journalist for 20++ years, then was hired by Tom Fontana to write on "Homicide." I think they did "the Corner" as well.
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Hey Sepehr! Great question! The key - as Dan MaxXx points out - is research, research, research. I developed a legal series with a television writer and the first 6 months of work - even before he started writing a single episode was interviewing lawyers, police officers, prosecutors, judges, court clerks, etc. He would ask them all very specific questions. That leads to authentic characters and situations in your project. Good luck!
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David Simon is truly a genius. He influenced me to make the switch from journalism to screenwriting! With that being said, The Wire had horrible TV viewership when it aired. I think casual TV watchers do not have the patience to sit through a slow moving drama like The Wire.
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in each Episodes of The Wire, I didn't feel any slow-paced in the story. Flexible Characters (Like McNulty, Bunk and ...) and clever dialogues, keeps me to watch and enjoy every moment of the Series.
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It's a long time since I watched The Wire but I recall it was big in the UK when a lot of the US series weren't. Unlike a lot of US series then and now it offered a unique view of a world we didn't know and characters that I think were reserved for film. I don't think it's been done any better since. Can we still delve into worlds like this? Of course. Do the studios want this kind of work? I hope so.
Wow...you live in a country that has some of the strictest censorship laws in the world, and both for production and broadcast. It's my understanding that every script has to be approved by the government, and that many certain elements can't even be mentioned or seen.
Is your goal to make a show like The Wire, with the issues that you described, in Iran? If so, I doubt you'll be able to do that there, and will have to film it somewhere else to broadcast it back into Iran via satellite - if it's not blocked.
Regarding David Simon - who refers to himself as "The Angriest Man in the World" - he was a great crime news and urban affairs reporter for many years (as mentioned above), and is definitely a Subject Matter Expert on the areas of crime; race, cover ups, criminal affairs and how information is suppressed. Ed Burns, his partner on The Wire, was a Baltimore detective. Every character in The Wire is based on real people, and every issue actually happened.
He also has a great blog that you might like to look at - The Audacity of Despair - and some of his speeches about Baltimore urban affairs that he gave at USC Law School and at UC-Berkeley are on Youtube. Many of his classic Baltimore news stories are available in the Baltimore Sun archive section.
Best fortunes in your creative endeavors, Sepehr!
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Yes. You are correct but it's could be to focus on some cases that meet the demands of the government and does not offend the belief of the Regime. I did not feel that Wire depicts a story beyond Baltimore. In my opinion, Tehran is even more likely to be portrayed as the storyline. In Wire, the main story is narrated by the police forces, but my idea can be narrated from journalists, and in order to start the story, it's better to go to the sport and football field in my City, which has serious injuries and disadvantages. Fortunately, we had a very successful television program in the field of football in Iran, along with a skilled expert who was consulted on the city football flaws. it just needs to gather the ideas and make a great treatment about the subject.
The Wire is great and only rates highly in the minds of creative people. We can see the genius.
I heard him say HBO wouldn’t tell him the size of the audience. They’d just say “we like it, keep going”.
Everyone had a clear goal and a relatable flaw. People just trying to better themselves or destroy themselves. No real middle ground.