Animated Film Of Words Of Nature By 95 Vocational High School Children Impresses The Audience In Kuta

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BADUNG - An animated video film entitled Sabda Alam by 95 students of SMK Raden Umar Said (RUS) Kudus, Central Java, amazed the audience at the Bali International Flim Festival (Balinale), in Kuta, Badung Regency, Bali.

The opening video begins with a number of birds flying in front of towering mountains, dense green forests with flowing rivers filled with fish. Five birds fly in the sky with their wings flapping freely with a peaceful chirp.

Then a small bird of the type of Javanese Ekek Geling perched on a tree trunk and jumped to another tree trunk and chirped and sang. Then the sweet voice was greeted by three types of yellow-crested cockatoos who sang along.

Seen, a pair of Bali starlings flying and dancing in the sky to hear the birds singing. Meanwhile, a male ivory hornbill with its beautiful flapping wings goes around looking for seeds to feed the female and young ivory hornbill.

However, the peaceful life of the birds in the wilderness, suddenly vanished, some hunters came with rifles and shot them until they were paralyzed and finally they were taken to the bird market. This animal is said to be peddled in a pathetic way and the fate of the male ivory hornbill ends up being cut by the hunter to be used as a carving decoration.

The audience was also amazed and got an idea about endemic birds in Indonesia whose existence is increasingly threatened with extinction due to illegal hunting and being traded illegally. An animated film with a duration of 4 minutes and 32 seconds was also uploaded to the YouTube channel of RUS Animation Studio and has been watched by almost 3 million eyes and has received 23 thousand likes and 1.5 thousand comments.

"This animated film was made by 95 students from SMK Raden Umar Said (RUS)," said Roy as CEO of Rus Animation to reporters in Kuta, Bali.

The reasons for choosing four birds, such as the Javan gecko, Bali starling, yellow-crested cockatoo and ivory hornbill, were based on the results of research and discussions with bird communities. The four birds are nearing extinction in Indonesia.

"We want our future generations to still be able to hear the sound of birds, still be able to see birds. Not only listen and watch birds from YouTube. That's what we don't want, and we ended up making this video clip," he added.

Meanwhile, the production process takes quite a long time which reaches approximately two years. In addition, this musical drama film uses the lyrics of the late Chrisye's song entitled Sabda Alam.

This song was sung by Eva Celia, Fadly Padi, Mytha Lestari, Mario Ginanjar, Leisha K and also musical arrangements from Tohpati which made the animated film in the music video look more quality.

"Actually, we got this idea because we consulted several bird communities in Indonesia. However, we are not only making about birds but definitely something new besides birds," he said.

Meanwhile, Luce Chiaro, one of the students of SMK Rus who is also a Visual Effects Artist in the film project, conveyed that the most difficult challenge in making the film was having to do research on nature and the birds.

"So the toughest challenge is we have to research many things. Starting from the movement of the birds, what kind of nature is it. We need to use these researches as our reference material, so that later everything looks natural. The research process takes months, approx. four months, it's all research starting from the technical and others," he said.

Meanwhile, director Garin Nugroho who came to the Balinale event gave praise and appreciation to the vocational school students so that they could create extraordinary animations. According to him, animation products are now the communication of entertainment in this century.

"They are able to combine visual and visual culture. That will be our future. Technology is in their hands. Do you want to be consumptive or productive. If you want to be productive, you have to keep learning. The technology is already available," said Garin.