Language for Your Short Film

It was 2016 when I wrote my first screenplay (well, not the first one, if screenplay for comedy shows in school projects were counted). At that time, I wrote for a local bank’s commercial film. When the production house contacted me, they had already made the story of the short film. They just needed me to write a poetic narration at first, but in the end I also helped them a with the script.

Months after that, a college friend of mine in Malang (a city in Indonesia, my country) asked me to make a short film for a competition. Long story shorts, 10 of us (included the actors) made a team to join the competition. The director and the producer told me about the idea of the story. After that, I started by writing a poetic narration and decided the title of the short film, Rotasi (meaning: Rotation).

I live in a city named Sidoarjo since I was in kindergarten, but I still go to my hometown in Jakarta every year. Sidoarjo is a city where most of the people use Javanese as their first language. My ethnicity is Sunda, and my family languages are Sundanese and Bahasa Indonesia. By that, I’m not really fluent in Javanese . I moved to Malang to study in a university. People in Malang are also speak Javanese as their first language. I usually try to speak in Javanese but many of my friends at school told me that I sound weird, and they told me not to force myself to speak Javanese.

Because of that reasons, I unconsciously wrote the dialogue of Rotasi in Bahasa Indonesia with Jakarta accent. When my team — which the people live in Malang and speak Javanese, read the draft, they just agreed of it. No complain, no suggestion. Until finally, the production day (yes, we’re sorry that we didn’t make a reading session before the production day). It was so hard for the actor to speak in Bahasa Indonesia without sounds like a Javanese. Because he is. And he’s not a professional actor, too. We took one shot for several times, only because we still heard the thick Javanese accent on the dialogue which actually have to be spoken in Bahasa Indonesia with Jakarta accent.

Finally, the film submitted. Rotasi won the Grand Winner and the 1st People’s Choice of the competition in Singapore. It was a great achievement for us. But, wham.

Many Rotasi’s audiences doesn’t like the fact that we use Jakarta accent, because the film set was in Malang, and the actors are also Javanese. They said that we feel embarassed of Javanese as a traditional language, and doesn’t want to show it to the audience. I started to rewatch Rotasi, and I realized that the thick Javanese accent from the actors are still there, and it bothers me in almost the entire of the film. Not because of the Javanese accent, but because the accent and the language doesn’t sound match.

In our next filmmaking, we improved. We know what we have and have not to do about script reading. Determining what language to use in our short film is not a short and easy thing anymore. There are some things to consider the language for a short film:

Story and film set is the main consideration of the language for a short film. For example, if we want to make a poetic or philosopical film, we can use formal language. The dialogue might doesn’t sound realistic, but it’s fine because it fits the concept of the film. Another example is if the film set is in 80’s, we have to do a research of how people in 80’s talking. And do remember that how people talking in every region is different, so make sure to do the right research for the right time and the right location set.

If we involve professional actor as our film role, the actor might used to learn a new language or accent (and still need some time to learn, too!). But if we collaborate with beginner actor— or even not an actor at all, we have to consider his ability in roleplaying. And, do a reading session before the production day. Make sure how the actor talks is how the character is supposed to talk.

Personally, audience target is not one of my consideration for a short film language. If your film is great, people will still watch it even if it doesn’t written in their language — as long as you put subtitle on it. From Rotasi (‘s mistake), I learned. By using local language and accent, people won’t avoid your film just because they are too lazy to read the subtitle. Instead, they will admire or interested of how unique and different it sounds.

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