page_title: Terang Boelan
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Terang Boelan / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the Wong Brothers, Chinese Indonesian filmmakers from the early 20th century
context_page_description: Terang Boelan is a 1937 film from the Dutch East Indies. Written by Saeroen, directed by Albert Balink, and starring Rd Mochtar, Roekiah and Eddie T. Effendi, Terang Boelan follows two lovers who elope after one is almost forced to marry an opium smuggler. The film was shot in the Indies and Singapore, and was partially inspired by the 1936 Hollywood film The Jungle Princess. It was aimed at native audiences and included keroncong music, which was popular at the time, and several actors from Balink's previous work Pareh.
  Terang Boelan was a commercial success in both the Indies and abroad, earning 200,000 Straits dollars in British Malaya. This success revived the faltering domestic film industry and inspired films aimed at Malay audiences in Malaya, creating a formula of songs, beautiful scenery and romance that was followed for decades afterwards. The Indonesian film historian Misbach Yusa Biran described it as a turning point in the history of Indonesian cinema for its catalytic effect on the industry's growth. Like many Indonesian films of the era, Terang Boelan has been lost since at least the 1970s.
context_section_description: By late 1936 Balink had obtained financial backing from several domestic and foreign companies with which he, the Wongs, and Franken opened the Dutch Indies Film Syndicate (Algemeen Nederlandsch Indisch Filmsyndicaat, or ANIF) in Batavia (now Jakarta). Although this new establishment focused mainly on newsreels and documentaries, on 1 January 1937 ANIF announced that it would produce several feature films, one of which was Terang Boelan.
  The story for Terang Boelan was written by Saeroen, a reporter with the newspaper Pemandangan who had close connections to the theatrical community, shortly after the domestic release of the American-produced Dorothy Lamour vehicle The Jungle Princess (1936), which served as an inspiration. The Indonesian film historian Misbach Yusa Biran wrote that this gave Terang Boelan stylistic and thematic similarities to the earlier film. The Indonesian film critic Salim Said also recognised such similarities, describing Terang Boelan as reflecting the "jungle princess" works popular at the time. Saeroen named the fictional island on which Terang Boelan takes place "Sawoba" after the crew: Saeroen, Wong, and Balink.
  Production had begun by February 1937, under Balink's direction and with the Wongs as cinematographers, only to be interrupted by the relocation of ANIF's offices. Filming had begun by May of that year. Sources conflict as to whether Franken was involved: Biran wrote that Franken had been left in charge of the studio's documentaries, while the American film scholar Karl G. Heider recorded Franken as co-directing the film. As opposed to The Teng Chun, who aimed his films at lower-class audiences, Balink aimed his film at educated native Indonesians, attempting to show them not from a European perspective but as they viewed themselves. According to Said, this arose as a reaction to Pareh's failure and resulted in a less ethnological approach. Terang Boelan was shot in black-and-white using highly flammable nitrate film at Cilincing in Batavia, Merak Beach in Banten, and Tanjong Katong in Singapore. The use of nitrate film may have been a factor in the film's later loss.
  The cast of Terang Boelan mainly consisted of actors who had appeared in Pareh. This included the leading actor, Rd Mochtar, and several minor players, including Eddie T. Effendi and Soekarsih. Other cast members, including the leading lady Roekiah and her husband Kartolo, were drawn from traditional toneel theatrical troupes; this may have been part of an effort to attract theatregoers. The film, which included the songs "Terang Boelan" and "Boenga Mawar" ("Rose"), required its cast to sing keroncong music (traditional music with Portuguese influences); because Mochtar's voice was ill-suited to the task, the musician Ismail Marzuki – who also composed the film's score – sang while Mochtar lip synced.
caption: One of the Wong brothers, c. 1947; the Wongs' collaboration with Balink on Terang Boelan was their second, after Pareh.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 500D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.11", "Image DateTime": "2012:07:25 11:17:58", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "980", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1092", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6951", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:22 10:11:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:22 10:11:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "7", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "20", "EXIF SubSecTime": "98", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "98", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "98", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "227", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "306", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "950", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "792000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3168000/593", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}