Taiwan Today

Two technicians who have toiled in relative anonymity have made major contributions to filmmaking in over the past three decades.

After A City of Sadness won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1989, director Hou Hsiao-hsien made a bold promise: In recognition of the contribution made by his sound engineer Tu Duu-chih, he would use royalties from international box office receipts to purchase advanced sound equipment for the technician.

A City of was the first feature-length movie made in to use sound recorded throughout filming instead of relying on the dubbing of actors' voices and the addition of sound effects in postproduction. "The introduction of synchronized sound (sync sound) recording is Tu's greatest contribution to 's cinema," says Tang Hsiang-chu, a sound engineer and documentary film director who has apprenticed under Tu.

As it turned out, A City of Sadness did not put as much money into Hou's pockets as he expected, despite its box office success. Nevertheless, the director took out a loan to make good on his promise. His grand gesture stands as an acknowledgement of the importance of behind-the-scenes film professionals like Tu and editor Liao Ching-sung. Both Tu and Liao began their careers in the 1970s and played key roles in 's New Wave Cinema movement through the 1980s.

In Control

Although the 52-year-old Tu has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with 's filmmaking royalty, he is not resting on his laurels. "It's quite normal for me to work around the clock and on weekends," he says. "But I'm happy with my job. Adjusting those controls and working with this equipment is just like playing video games. So much is under my control. What else could I want?"

Working with creative geniuses can be trying for some, but for Tu, it has been a perk. "The stranger a director's personality, the more enjoyable my work is," he explains. "Having a unique personality is a key factor in the brilliance of a director, and that's why it's great to work with them."

In 2001, Tu received the technical award at the Cannes Film Festival for sound engineering on What Time Is It There? and Millennium Mambo, directed by Tsai Ming-liang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, respectively. He says that was the first time a sound engineer had won the award, which previously had gone to technicians in other areas, mainly photography and special effects.

Tu began his career as an assistant sound engineer at Central Motion Picture Corp. (CMPC), which was owned by the Kuomintang, 's ruling party throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Tu took control of sound production for the experimental four-part movie In Our Time in 1982. "I was responsible for dubbing and sound effects," Tu recalls. "No sound engineer was needed on the set, because the sounds were created in postproduction."

Getting in Sync

But Tu felt increasingly dissatisfied with the sound quality of 's films. In the early 1980s, he decided to buy his own equipment so he could record sync sound for a short government film. Sync sound is a technique that allows sound that is recorded on location to be synchronized with video in postproduction by matching time codes. "Nobody in the company knew enough about sync sound," Tu remembers. "They didn't see the value of the new technique and they were concerned about the extra money the company would have to pay for using it."

Tu already had the necessary gear so CMPC did not have to pay for sound synching equipment. However, other costly changes were necessary to make sync sound recording feasible, primarily reducing the noise produced by film cameras at that time. Cameras used in in the mid 1980s were very noisy and had to be covered with blankets in experiments with sync sound recording. This made it uncomfortably hot for camera operators, Tu says.

But the sound engineer thought the vastly improved sound quality justified altering the way things were done on film sets. He took to carrying a copy of the short film with him, along with a projector so that he could screen it for directors and producers, hoping to convince them of the technique's merit.

In A City of Sadness, Hou Hsiao-hsien used soundproof cameras, which facilitated the usage of sync sound. Tu's commitment to the technique paid off with the Venice Film Festival prize, and Hou's subsequent gift was most welcome. "I didn't have enough money to buy advanced equipment," Tu explains, "So I was very appreciative of Hou's support. He asked me to use the new equipment to make more movies and to cultivate more talent in this area."

The Dolby Effect

Tu's other major contribution to sound production in was his use of Dolby effects to enhance sound quality. The first Taiwan-made film to use Dolby sound was Dust of Angels (1992). "Realizing that this new technology was going to be used on the movie, I was so excited that I couldn't sleep on the eve of the first day of shooting," he says. "I felt the same way when I worked on A City of Sadness. Thanks to Dolby effects, each sound is so mellow and genuine. It's like a dream come true."

Tu has worked on many movies that have incorporated Dolby sound since then. It is expensive, but well worth it for filmmakers with sufficiently deep pockets. Until recently, Tu had to rent facilities abroad for the last stage of mixing. In the first half of the 1990s, Tu would go to to put the finishing touches on Dolby features. In the latter half of the decade, he found more affordable facilities in . Then, he found even less costly facilities in , where he would do his final sound mix until four years ago, when he opened his own advanced studio.

Tu found his experience in to be of particular significance. is a major destination for postproduction of movies. Mixing with Hollywood sound professionals, Tu was able to keep up with world trends more easily than he could in . Tu witnessed first-hand the transition from analogue to digital sound recording and mixing. He says, "I noticed that sound engineering equipment got smaller every time I went to ." Analogue sound recording involves the use of actual tapes and cumbersome machines, while digital sound equipment takes up far less space and makes it possible to create sounds that were unimaginable before.

In 1996, Tu set up a studio for early-stage postproduction work. In 2004 he completed a major expansion, installing some of the most sophisticated sound-mixing equipment available. 's Government Information Office paid a third of the NT$24 million (US$700,000) cost of the advanced equipment as part of a program to promote the digitalization of 's movie industry. Today the studio provides sound for 20 or so feature films annually, mostly Taiwanese productions, plus several documentaries and short films. It also serves as a major center for cultivating sound production talent. Tu has taken on 13 apprentice sound engineers, who work either in the studio or on film sets.

Tu says he'd like to hire more people, but he does not think it would be prudent to introduce too many people to skills that may be in limited demand. When Tu started out, Taiwan's film industry churned out about 85 feature-length movies per year, more than double the current number (last year), so the master engineer's caution is understandable.

A Cut Above

Like Tu, 57-year-old Liao Ching-sung started his career at CMPC in the early 1970s. "Editing was largely a manual job," Liao explains. He says technicians would even develop painful bone spurs in their shoulders, the result of the repetitive movements required to cut and splice film. "The situation improved by the time I co-edited 800 Heroes [1976]," he adds, since automation had come to editing. But film editing remained a time-consuming task until digital techniques became available about a decade ago. It might have taken up to four months to edit a two-hour film previously. "I just kept working without holidays and sometimes got depressed," Liao recalls. Now, the work can be done in four weeks.

Digital editing has made a big difference in other ways. In the past, an editor would usually work closely with the director as soon as filming was wrapped. Footage shot by most directors is often 10 and 20 times longer than the final film, and making revisions took time. "I felt so worried whenever someone would offer an editing suggestion to the director," Liao remembers. "I could spend another six hours making changes based on this advice, which might not turn out to be as good as expected." Now, the editor steps in only after the director finishes a rough cut using a computer. "This way the director has more control over his or her work," Liao says, plus the digital approach makes it easier to share sequences with collaborators.

Based on his experiences working with numerous directors, Liao--himself the director of two movies--observes that problems sometimes go unnoticed as a director can be too close to the work. So in addition to serving a technical role, editors are also valued for their ability to make objective comments and suggestions to improve a movie's continuity or general feel.

Just as French sculptor Auguste Rodin was said to release the soul of stones he carved, Liao believes it is his job to bring out the soul of a film, though he stresses that it is the director's prerogative to make final decisions. The search for the soul of films came to the fore in during the rise of New Wave Cinema in the 1980s, when directors reconsidered cinematic conventions in terms of both content and style.

Liao has edited all of Hou Hsiao-hsien's movies but one--A Time to Live, A Time to Die. "I was inspired by these directors," he says of Hou and other New Wave filmmakers. "Through their works, I came to realize that movies can do more than entertain audiences; they're also vehicles for the messages they want to convey." This emphasis on the medium as the message made Liao's job more challenging, as directors relied on him to craft the overall atmosphere of their movies instead of merely ensuring the stories unfolded in a smooth, linear manner. "While working with these directors, I began to read a lot of books on philosophy and literature," he says, adding that on completion of each movie, he felt he had grown.

The Censor's Knife

Government censorship was an integral part of filmmaking in from the 1950s until the lifting of martial law in 1987. As an editor, Liao had to work with government censors. He says he was asked to edit out "unacceptable" shots--scenes considered morally unhealthy or politically incorrect by censors--only a handful of times in his career. Directors usually anticipated censors' concerns, so the vast majority of productions didn't require surgery. One of the films meriting special attention was Super Citizen, directed by Wan Jen in 1985. Censors objected to a scene set in a slum area of , opining that showing it to foreign audiences would be a loss of face for . "I still remember the director venting his anger by repeatedly kicking a trash can in the editing room," Liao says, adding that he often played the role of go-between in such cases, working out a compromise between the director and the government-affiliated CMPC.

As censorship passed into history, so has New Wave Cinema. "Movie people of my generation often showed their concern for society in their works," Liao notes. "The emerging generation is more interested in personal feelings, in the inner world of individuals."

Liao and Tu continue to earn awards as they adjust to a constantly changing filmmaking environment. Both are recipients of 's highest honor for filmmaking professionals, the National Award for Arts in cinema. Last year, Liao shared a Golden Bell Award (the equivalent of an Emmy Award) for his editing work on a documentary biography of former President Chiang Ching-kuo, directed by Tang Hsiang-chu. Meanwhile, Tu shared a Golden Horse Award (the equivalent of an Academy Award) for sound engineering.

Like Tu, Liao mentors up-and-coming film talent. He also teaches courses on movie production at local colleges and when the Taiwan Film and Culture Association, which is chaired by Hou Hsiao-hsien, needs lecturers on the art of editing, Liao's name is at the top of the list. Both Liao and Tu are adept at using transitions as a tool of their respective film disciplines. It seems both are doing a good job of managing their own transitions from active participation in filmmaking to retirement, ensuring that younger technicians are well equipped to take their places behind the scenes.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw