Documenting success

He says he got into documentaries "by accident" when, a few years ago, he found himself out of work due to the movie industry's slump. "There were no movies for us to work on, so we decided to make our own movies," Lin said. "We didn't have much of a budget, so we chose to start with documentaries."

After making a few short documentaries, Lin headed home to Ilan (宜蘭) where he unexpectedly bumped into the perfect subject for a film. His older brother Lin Yu-hsin (林育信) was coaching a gymnastics team of seven boys, aged 6 to 9. The boys were fun and charismatic and each had a story to be told.

But Lin and his filmmaking partner Chuang Ching-shen (莊景燊) didn't want to make some serious, heavy social comentary, so they wove in humor, animation and special effects to spice up the story. "We used all the skills we learned in making movies when we made Jump! Boys, so actually it was like we were shooting a feature film instead of a documentary," Lin said.

While not downplaying the success of documentary cinema, Lin feels it is not the solution to Taiwan's movie woes some are hailing it as.

"Lately everybody feels that documentaries are popular and great and that they can save Taiwan's film industry, so we should all just stick to making documentaries. But this is wrong," Lin said. "I think we were noticed because we provided a different style of movie. Taiwan's movies are too depressing: Life is hardship and people don't to go to the theater to see more hardship. Our film is energetic and funny, and that's why people noticed it -- not because it is a documentary."

Jump! Boys can be rented from Blockbuster or Asia1 (亞藝). Let It Be can be purchased at Eslite bookstores (誠品書店).