The Importance of Strengthening Film Literacy in Exploring the World of Cinematography

Yogyakarta, July 17th 2020 – The Youth Studies Centre Fisipol UGM held another online discussion and brought two speakers, a lecturer from Department of Communication Science Fisipol UGM, Gilang Desti Parahita, M.A. and the founder of Cinema Lovers Community (CLC) Purbalingga, Bowo Leksono. The discussion theme was Film and Education: High School Students Can Make Films! This was for the social science high school students from the 11th and 12th grade from all over Special Region of Yogyakarta. What made it interesting was, the discussion which more like a private class was enthusiastically joined by the participation of high school students to understand the basics importance of film literacy and sharing session from Bowo Leksono regarding the process of how film production was done by our students friends in the cinematography extracullicular.Started the discussion, Gilang Desti Parahita talked about comprehensive starting point to explain the importance of film literacy. For Gilang, film literacy could be an effort to understand about something in a film, therefore it could be used as the aspects to connect the contexts of the film and our environment, from the popular culture, cultural symbols, and do not forget that film literacy also being used to understand how our economic and political structures was pictured by the producer. By having an enough understanding about film literacy, Gilang also added that indirectly we will be the active film audiences. Which was not only enjoy the film, but also could question it, discuss it, and analyze the ins and outs of a film.

While explaining the importance of having film literacy, Gilang also mentioned at least four elements of the films that should we know. First, there were dramatic and cinematic structures in a film as the efforts of the producer to make the film more alive and more realistic. Second, relation of the film and audience could pictured how the dramatic and teathrical effects of the film could affect the audience. Third, contexts and consequences which were positioned to explain why this film was produced, distributed, showed, also the effects to the society. Creation became the last element of the film literacy which contained about the process of creative powers were distributed into the production of a film.

Meanwhile, Bowo Leksono explained more about the production process of a film that was done by the students or the youths. As the founder of CLC Purbalingga, Bowo who was familiar with the cinematic world explained that the youths in a cinematography extracullicular had a unique characteristic: they often brought love stories into the production process of a film. In this case, Bowo underlined that uniqueness could be overcome by giving suggestions to the youths to add more movie references to make them know more about other stories of the films. Bowo also emphasized and did not forget to say that reading was a main key to produce a good quality visual works. The logic was, the more you read, you would have more knowledges and insights related to the contents of film making and you could also be more creative.

Bowo also gave an example that in the process of a film, either it was a fiction or a documentary ones, it would have many references that could we get from the problems which were close to humans lives. The goal was to make the theme of the films not limited and not monotone. But, political issues, historical issues, and cultural issues could not be separated from both of those themes. It was up to us as the part of the films to produce, visualize it, and organize it to make it enjoyable and did not make the viewers bored. Bowo said that the activities of these youths that incorporated in the film making production was a part of the realization of a character builiding which was going to be useful in the future. By learning the film production, the youths could explore their skills in discussion, exchanging ideas, pictured our current society problems, and increasing their creativities.

Ending this discussion, both of the speakers talked that a film production process was not an easy thing to do. To produce a good quality of visual works, according to what Bowo Leksono said in the beginning, it needed to increase your film references and read more books. Gilang also added that the more we critized and the more we watched good quality films, then our interest in a good quality films would be getting sharpened. Gilang also suggested to learn more about the directors who had important role behind the scenes of the films. The goal was to understand about the pattern of ev