Chienkuo Technology University (CTU) students have created a stop-motion animation called Heroes Without Names (無名英雄), inspired by Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) electricity maintenance workers.
Department of Commercial Design students Hsu Chun-feng (許淳豐), Lin Yu-jou (林妤柔), Su Hung-yi (蘇弘益), Hung Ching-wen (洪靖雯) and Huang Yu-hsiang (黃昱翔) at the Changhua-based university created the two-and-a-half-minute film.
Eight hand-sketched images were shot per second, Lin said, adding that they drew about 1,200 pictures.
Photo: Chang Tsung-chiu, Taipei Times
The frames were digitally retouched in post-production, she added.
The project took six months to complete and is to be screened at the CTU Museum, Taichung’s A+ Creative Festival and the Taipei World Trade Center’s 37th Young Designers’ Exhibition next month.
Taipower maintenance workers are responsible for regularly cleaning and maintaining insulators, painting and replacing transmission towers, and system repairs, as well as other tasks, Su said at the film’s debut on Thursday last week.
They carry more than 20kg of equipment and work at heights of 10 stories or more, Su said.
The toughest task is fixing transmission towers in the mountains, he said, adding that workers often need to stay overnight at remote sites.
Although maintenance workers are paid well, people are not necessarily willing to take the job, he added.
People can use electricity conveniently thanks to these “heroes without names” who work behind the scenes, Hung said.
In the beginning, the students wanted to present the story through film, Huang said.
However, Taipower said filming the work would be a public safety concern, he said, adding that their university instructor Tu Ya-wen (杜雅雯) suggested using animation to tell the story.
Electricity maintenance workers do not like discussing the tougher aspects of their job because their families worry about them, Hsu said.
People seldom speak about the work electricians do, he said, adding that electricians are becoming marginalized in the workplace.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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