Digimax hopes to compete globally

Digimax Inc (太極影音), the nation's leading 3D animation production house, plans to raise new capital of between US$40 million and US$50 million next quarter from domestic and foreign investors while vowing to become the world's fourth-largest player, a company executive said yesterday.

"We're developing a 90 minute-long movie production project as the company's next step to go global," Digimax chairwoman Helen Huang (黃寶雲) told a press briefing yesterday to share her pride after the company's 12 minute-long Adventures in the National Palace Museum (國寶總動員) received the Grand Prize at the Tokyo International Animation Fair in Japan last Saturday.

If sufficient capital is secured, Digimax hopes to soon outperform Hong Kong's IMAGI Animation Studio (意馬國際), whose Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles whopped US$95 million in revenues last year, while looking up to Walt Disney Pictures' Pixar Animation Studio, DreamWorks Animation in the US and Japan's Sony Pictures Animation, Huang said

She refused to reveal names of potential foreign investors, but Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥), chairwoman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), yesterday said that a domestic top-ranking high-tech company had agreed to inject capital into Digimax.

"Capital is not a problem," Ho said at the same press briefing yesterday.

"But players in the local digital-content sector need to strengthen their international competitiveness before they can attract more foreign capital to pump in cash," she said.

The government's Development Fund (開發基金) had pumped NT$400 million (US$13.2 million) into Digimax to take a 26.5 percent stake, Ho said.

To position itself as a global player planning to tap into the international digital-content market, Digimax has employed a 3C strategy ? co-production, co-branding and co-distribution -- by teaming up with international talent, including former DreamWorks Animation director Daniel Pierre, Huang said.

Huang, formerly a children's book publisher, further heralded the nation's software talent to be top-notch professionals, who are competitive internationally, as well as the hardware support from the local high-tech industry, all of which represents strength for the local sector to expand into the world's digital-content creativity businesses.

She also said that local production was also competitive in terms of cost, which was estimated to be one-third less than its international counterparts.

After inking a contract with NASA in late 2006, Digimax is currently working on a 40 minute film, entitled Quantum Quest ? A Cassini Space Oddessy (土星之旅), which is scheduled to be released to the world's IMAX movie market next year.

"This will be Taiwan's first animated movie to be viewed on eight story-tall IMAX screens," Huang said.

Digimax, established in 1990 with a working capital of NT$500 million, provides a full range of integrated services in the areas of 3D animation, motion capture, visual effects as well as new explorations into the latest interactive media.