It has been a fruitful year for Green Paddy Animation Studio (青禾動畫). Its production A Fish with a Smile (微笑的魚), based on renowned Taiwanese illustrator Jimmy Liao's (幾米) book series, won the Special Prize of the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk for best short film at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in February. At the Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Taipei last month, the 10-minute film was again crowned with the best animation award.
What makes the firm most excited is its achievement of beating 290 competitors from 34 countries to win the Best Original Made-for-Mobile Content award for its work Jokes at MIPCOM, the world's leading audiovisual content show, in Cannes, France, early last month.
"After the ceremony, the French presiding judge walked up to me putting his index finger in his month [mimicking a funny scene in Jokes], saying `I like that!' That really makes me proud and strengthens our belief that Taiwanese people's sense of humor can be shared with foreigners despite cultural and language differences," animation director Lin Po-liang (林博良) said during an interview last week.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The 52-year-old artist usually stays silent, sitting in the corner of a room while his articulate wife Tricia Chen (
"As soon as one financier asked `Do you need investment?' he [Lin] immediately jumped forward with his eyes wide open," Chen said, referring to one of the meetings with potential buyers at the latest trade fair at the Asia Media Festival held in Singapore late last month.
"We have abundant creative ideas. But without equipment, talent and capital injection, we cannot mass-produce animation works to meet the surging demand," Lin said.
The animation master, a graduate in fine arts from National Taiwan Normal University, established his first firm, Blue Bird Animation Club (
In its heyday, the company had 70 employees, who were kept constantly busy when contracts for long series of TV animations were inked.
But the situation turned unstable when a low season came.
"Doing animation requires creativity, but contract making is the opposite. You have to strictly follow what your clients said and lock up your imagination in the corner. It's not the way for the long term," Lin said.
Three years later, when Lin transformed his firm into Green Paddy Animation Research Club (青禾動畫研究社), US snack giant Cheetos happened to be looking for a local company to produce animated commercials in hopes that its mascot, which looks like a leopard, would be warmly received here.
This proved a turning point, as Cheetos loved Green Paddy's work and paid them a hefty NT$750,000 for a 15-second commercial.
"We then believed doing animated commercials would be the path to follow," Chen said.
Since then, Green Paddy -- a name which represents Lin and Chen's wish that the seedlings of their dream will spring up -- has produced some famous commercials, like I-Mei Foods Co's (義美食品) Iris-branded wedding biscuits, the cute figure of juice drink QOO and HSBC's line-drawn figure.
Making animated advertising has brought in stable income, accounting for 80 percent of the company's total revenues, enough to support Lin's passion for creating mobile content, an area where creators' originality can really be brought into full play.
Lin has produced more than 100 humorous short films. Some were aired on Taipei City buses and others are available from telecommunications providers.
Green Paddy has teamed up with the nation's five major telecom operators to offer short animation clips for download. However, as third-generation (3G) wireless service has just taken off and download fees remain high, it will take some time for the market to mature, Chen said.
The company's business lines have also stretched across the Taiwan Strait, a market that holds great potential in various fields.
China has yet to release 3G-compatible phones, but users can download films via WAP phones. The latest figures show that 50 million WAP mobile phones had been sold in China as of the end of last month, Chen said.
Green Paddy did not want to miss out this great opportunity. It has signed deals with China Mobile Communications Corp (中國移動), China's biggest mobile carrier, and China Unicom Ltd (中國聯通) to provide its animated works.
"The Chinese government has really pulled out all the stops to promote the digital content market," Chen said.
"In addition to having built several animation and cartoon bases, which require no rentals for companies to move in, the Chinese government would offer subsidies of between 1,000 yuan [US$127.75] and 1,500 yuan for every one-minute animation made. If it's 3D, the subsidy is higher," he added.
What's more impressive is Beijing's closed-door policies, Chen said. Every day between 5pm and 8pm, more than 3,000 TV stations around China are not allowed to air foreign programs, which gives rise to an immense demand for domestic content.
Lin, who never stops drawing, thinking and creating, said he obviously felt itchy about moving operations to China but that the company is confident that the business model of making creations in Taiwan and marketing them around the world was the right thing to do.
"Some Taiwanese youngsters are quite imaginative. They just need training from experienced teachers to turn their ideas into real work," Lin said.
The Taiwanese government has earmarked NT$20 billion (US$613.6 million) from this year to 2010 to subsidize the digital content and cultural creativity industry.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs expects to boost the output value of digital content from last year's NT$290 billion to NT$391 billion next year before reaching the target of NT$500 billion in 2009.
Green Paddy may have a chance to put its hands on more funding, as
international investors — including private equity funds — have showed an
interest in investing or acquiring Taiwanese media firms.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)