Is the American Skin Movie a Real Story? ‘American Skin’ is an Intense Dramatic Film

6 min readFeb 23, 2021

‘American Skin’ is an intense drama film surrounding an Iraq veteran Lincoln Jackson (Nate Parker), grappling with the reality of his son’s death. The movie kicks off with his divorce, after which he tries to remedy the situation by spending time with his son Kijani (Tony Espinosa). But tragedy befalls the pair soon, as one night, the 14-year-old boy is shot and killed during one of the routine checks at a traffic stop. The cold-blooded and guilty police officer Mike Randall (Beau Knapp), gets away without facing the consequences.
The father is enraged and alarmed at the system’s ignorance of justice. As a result, he teams up with a student filmmaker, Jordin (Shane Paul McGhie), and together, they attempt to reach out to the masses by documenting the truth in a film. As a shoutout to the political issues taking hold of America today, the film is profoundly relevant and is a movie that screams its message to the audiences. It burns with a flame that refuses to fizzle out, and hence, we decided to look into its origin. Is there any truth behind the story of ‘American Skin’? Here’s everything we know.

Is American Skin Based on a True Story?
No, ‘American Skin’ is not based on a true story. Its screenplay is credited to Nate Parker, who has penned the script due to being deeply affected by the political disturbances in America. He wanted to address issues like racism, police brutality, and dehumanization through cinema. For him, there is no better medium to give voice to something that needs immediate care and action. Parker stated that he wanted audiences to actively talk about these issues, which is why cinema seemed like the perfect resort to publicize his message.
Parker mentioned that the idea for the film took shape when his nephew approached him to seek advice. He wanted to know how to deal with the police if he is ever stopped for a confrontation of any sort (a raging concern within the black community). During his conversation with his nephew, the filmmaker suddenly felt the need to rearrange his answer in a way that might be useful to the bigger masses. Since so many people are dealing with the same issue, he wanted to help people approach their problems productively.
Actors Omari Hardwick and Theo Rossi expressed their belief in art and the power it holds. They held the opinion that art can do what politics can’t. There are arguments and debates in politics, which subsequently cause friction among the various parties engaging in it. Art, on the other hand, is softer and more sensible. The idea of walking out of a theater and having a nuanced discourse with a friend appealed to the makers.
One of the scenes in the movie involves the father confronting the police officer, who pointlessly holds them up at the starting of the film. He asks the lawman why he is being targeted. After a definite moment of pressure, the officer admits to having done so because they are black. The neighborhood where Lincoln is stopped is not an area where the black community thrives, so the officer concludes that they don’t belong there.

The scene is very much in tandem with the real-life story of Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, who was shot to death during one of his jogs through a predominantly white neighborhood on February 23, 2020. It is also one of the heartbreaking incidents that set off the Black Lives Matter movement. It gained more traction after George Floyd’s tragic killing on May 25, 2020. In response, Parker also stated that Floyd’s story has become an intrinsic part of their life.
It has become their collective story, and hence, they cannot sit in silence. In 2014, after Michael Brown’s death (another account of police brutality), Parker flew to Ferguson, Missouri, to stand against the injustice that has threatened their community’s survival. He further wanted to understand the tensions between the police forces and people of color. He subsequently described his experiences in an interview with Deadline.
Parker stated, “It became even more clear to me, the disconnect in our collective understanding of citizenship, law enforcement, and our responsibility to preserve American Black lives. This trip and subsequent killings developed in me a fire that manifested itself into the makings of this film ‘American Skin’.” Therefore, although the movie is not based on a true story, it is a tribute to all those lives lost in the vile manifestations of racism and persecution that has engulfed America.

Your UI isn’t a Disney Movie

My previous short article about gratuitous animation really struck a chord with people. The response has been phenomenal and it’s been awesome reading others’ frustrations with overly animated UIs.

To be clear, I’m not anti motion design for UIs. Far from it. I have a problem with animation that serves only to get in the way of the end user.

One of the clearest signs of a competent UI designer is restraint. It’s about knowing the capabilities of your chosen platform and then not using them (until the perfect opportunity arises).

Rather than just bemoaning the use of unnecessary animation, I’ll do my best to suggest scenarios that would benefit from considered use of animation.

I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions about this topic.

If you liked this article you might also enjoy A Contrived Example

The following is a quick, contrived example that I came up with to demonstrate the Disneyfication of UI motion design. Although this is an exaggerated example, in truth there are many UIs out in the wild that exhibit this kind of garish motion.

Click here to see a live version of this demo.

It’s almost like we’ve abandoned visual skeuomorphism and replaced it with behavioral skeuomorphism in which our digital objects act as though they are made from jelly, or dangling from invisible rubber bands.

Stop Wanton Animation

Animation is like cursing. If you overuse it, it loses all its impact.

Animation Principles

I’ve heard some UI designers suggest Disney’s animation principles as required reading for UI designers. Unfortunately this helps to promote the idea of UI as entertainment, which invariably leads to a UI that slows the user down.

Many UI motion designers seem to treat their user interfaces like animation portfolios. Unless you’re hoping to get picked up by Pixar, you can probably steer clear of animation easing like “Bounce” or “Ease-in-Out”.

What is an Interface?

In computing, an interface is a shared boundary across which two separate components of a computer system exchange information.
Interface (computing) — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(computing)

It’s the interface’s responsibility to mediate an information exchange which makes it so important. The challenge for designers is to determine when their design gets in the way of this central UI tenet.

Motion in UI Design

Here are some simple principles that have worked well for me and which I recommend:

Be able to justify the use of each animation in terms of benefit to the user. “It looks pretty” doesn’t qualify.
Keep animation duration at or under 300ms
Avoid Linear animation easing. It makes motion look slow, uninteresting and mechanical.
99% of animations should use a simple “Ease-In” or “Ease-Out” animation easing.
You only rarely need more exotic animation easing such as Spring, Bounce etc.