ENGINEERING

With the runaway success of the 3D movie Avatar, Taiwan's puppet show industry is preparing to launch its own 3D film featuring the island's traditional cloth puppets within a year.

The National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) and local puppet theater company Pili International Multimedia Co. is cooperating to develop Taiwan's first 3D puppet film, a collaboration aiming to invigorate the traditional art with the use of high technology, said the NCHC.

A 3D puppet film, which would normally take five years to complete, may now take less than a year with the help of the NCHC, according to Pili managing director Vincent Huang.

NCHC's technologies have mostly been used in biomedical and disaster relief fields in the past, NARL president Chen Wen-hwa said at a press conference on Wednesday.

"It was beyond our expectations, but people in the technology business can now make contributions in the creative industry, " Chen said.

A five-minute experimental 3D puppet film, featuring the legendary puppet character Su Huang-chen, was shown at the press conference held by the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL).

The crew also gave live demonstrations of the 3D film shooting at the press conference titled "Technology Meets Creative Industry- Su Huan-chen Revitalized".

Audiences listened in awe as Huang, the "Eight Tone Genius" known for his one-man-multiple-voices talent, alternated between characters in his dubbing of puppet roles "Sheng," "Dan" and "Chou."

Pili's efforts at making 3D films in the past have been hampered by expensive post-production costs and the lack of technical support, Huang said.

"Now that we have a chance to cooperate, I hope that the NCHC will continue to be our visual consultant," said Huang.

Huang, who has dreamt of puppet Su Huang-chen telling him to "jiayou" or go for it in Taiwanese, said that he hopes to bring the 3D puppet show onto an international stage.

The budget for "Legend of the Sacred Stone, " the first ever puppet movie, was originally estimated at NT$80 million, but increased to NT$200 million (US$62,248) as the filming proceeded, Huang said.

"With the help of the NCHC, we will be able to lower the film's production costs and reevaluate technological costs," said Huang.

As Taiwan's only national-level supercomputing center, the NCHC possesses advanced supercomputing, storage, and scientific visualization technologies, according to the NCHC.

"The experimental film is the first step in our cooperation, and we expect to work together in the fields of supercomputing, video storage, and visual technologies in the future to help our local puppetry art gain a competitive edge in the international market, " said the NCHC in a statement on its Web site.

Originated in China, cloth or hand puppet shows were first introduced to Taiwan in the mid-Qing Dynasty, where it adapted new cultural elements and creative performing styles to become the popular puppet shows in Taiwan today, according to the Pili company's website.

Vincent Huang and his brother Chris Huang established Pili International Multimedia Co. and run the largest puppet show production center in the world, according to the brothers.