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.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
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American climber Alex Honnold is to attempt a free climb of Taipei 101 today at 9am, with traffic closures around the skyscraper. To accommodate the climb attempt and filming, the Taipei Department of Transportation said traffic controls would be enforced around the Taipei 101 area. If weather conditions delay the climb, the restrictions would be pushed back to tomorrow. Traffic controls would be in place today from 7am to 11am around the Taipei 101 area, the department said. Songzhi Road would be fully closed in both directions between Songlian Road and Xinyi Road Sec 5, it said, adding that bidirectional traffic controls would