However, there is one big problem with the scene that follows between Rodessa and Rodney: although you see them having sex (some of them are direct shots on the action), the ummm… necessary parts are visibly absent! It is very obvious that they are not really having sex, which ends up making the scene look cheesy. What I would suggest in the future is to make use of the most effective sex organ: the imagination! Next time, just show silhouettes and shadows of the people having sex. To make it fun, put them in interesting-looking positions and let the audience fill in what they think is happening. Also, you can intercut that with shots of hands running over people’s backs and legs, heads thrown back in ecstasy, etc. etc. People can fill in the blanks easily enough in their minds. Remember, sometimes what you don’t show can be more effective that what you do.
The ending was probably the most ambiguous part of the film. I was able to follow the fact that Diane doesn’t have the “brown bag” mentality (so to speak), and has chosen to reject where she comes from; because of that, she’s not allowed into the “black society social club”. However, the dialogue between her and the girl at the door doesn’t explain that very well; it comes across as too abstract and leaves the audience more confused.
Visual Look
The biggest thing that I noticed was that the aspect ratio was off throughout the entire film, and all of the footage was stretched out. The film appeared to be in fullscreen, as there were no bars at the top and bottom to indicate widescreen. However, at certain places (notably when the action would freeze for voice-over explanations), very narrow black bars appeared at the top and bottom of the frame, then disappeared when the action resumed. There were a few other times when this randomly happened as well. The footage was likely shot in a compressed 16:9 format, then was uncompressed when it was transferred for editing. To avoid this in the future, shoot in 4:3 fullscreen, then crop the footage to widescreen in post and add the bars at the top and bottom. (Of course, you will need to keep this in mind while you’re shooting or you’ll cut people’s heads off!)
A good deal of the camerawork in the film is unsteady. Many of the slow or stationary shots are shaky, which is very obvious and distracting. (E.g. the camera shake during the shot of Diane at the end is not only noticeable, but it breaks the drama of that moment.) This could be tremendously improved by the use of a decent tripod and/or a homemade steadycam. (see our how to build a steadycam article) The steadycam takes a bit of getting used to, but with some practice, you should be able to do some pretty cool shots with it! If you’re not able to get a sturdy tripod, you can stabilize it at the base using sandbags to ensure that it doesn’t shake. This is especially helpful when shooting outdoors.
One final thing to note is that the credit sequence is very jumpy; it looks like two different versions of the credits were interwoven together during the rendering process. This can easily be fixed by going back and adjusting it in the editing software.
