Japanese production designer Yohei Taneda yesterday shared his views on the use of digital technology in cinematography in a forum hosted by the Taipei Film Festival.
Taneda, the artistic director of Seediq Bale (賽德克巴萊) — an epic Taiwanese film — said he persuaded the director, Wei Te-sheng (魏德勝), not to shoot some of the scenes in the high mountains to help save money.
The designer said he talked Wei into filming the historic scenes of 1930s village street life in a studio in New Taipei City (新北市).
“Wei wanted to take the crew up 2,000m high mountains to stage the street scenes of Wushe village life, but I persuaded him to build sets instead in the A-jung Studio, which is closer to Taipei,” he said.
The decision saved money and created better results, said Taneda, adding that the reason he joined the production was to introduce the Wushe Incident (霧社事件) — the uprising by the Seediq tribe against Japanese colonizers in the 1930s — to more of his countrymen.
The production team then used special effects to add mountains and airplanes into scenes that were shot in the studio.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
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