All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

by Jonathan Abrams

VINCENT PERANIO (PRODUCTION DESIGNER): I picked the right neighborhoods. I know Baltimore. I’ve lived here all my life. I’m not afraid of any neighborhoods. I’ve been down every alley in this city. So, pretty much, when David talks about places, I know what he’s talking about. The story is about more West Baltimore than East Baltimore. East Baltimore is different than West Baltimore, even though there’s a lot of crime in both. East Baltimore is the typical row houses. There are blocks and blocks of these row house façades. It’s very graphic. And it’s even more graphic in that there’s no trees in that part of the city. It’s just cement, asphalt, and brick. That’s all you see, and when you walk in the alleys, it’s jungle. I love that contrast, and I love the bleakness of it. Also, I like the lighting. In so many vacant houses where we were filming, we’re filming in a natural light or making it look like natural light, because it didn’t have electricity. Actually, some of the lighting to me was almost like a painting from the past, like from the seventeenth century, a Rembrandt look about it, the darkness of the house and the sunlight searing through the boarded-up windows. I think the show was bleak and beautiful in the way that looking at ruins in a ruined civilization are.