Pili International Multimedia Creates the World’s First Comic-based 3D Movie : “The Arti: The Adventure Begins” with Puppet Characters
Date: 2015/02/21
The industries in Taiwan are heavily relied on electronics industries and the government has been looking for an emerging alternative to the current mainstream industries. In recent years, the distinction between manufacturing, service, and other industries becomes vague. The necessity to develop a new market for cross field applications and to grasp the coming global business opportunities is beyond discussion.
The Emerging Industry Division, a sub-group of the Industry Upgrading and Transition Service Team of Ministry of Economic Affairs, collaborates with 7 legal foundations dedicating to the promotion of emerging industries and constructing the supply chain of new coming industries from the top to the middle and downstream. Also, the unit facilitates the cooperation between industry and school and instructs related firms using government resources. Because of these actions, the government tries aggressively to improve the efficiency of every associated innovation promoting bureau. The steps to bring up the wave of start-ups include but not limited to the integration of cross bureau resources, the relaxation of regulations and the connection of domestic and foreign start-up accelerators.
Director General Dr. Ming-Ji Wu of Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Leader of the Emerging Industry Division Dr. Ruey-Beei, Wu indicate that the most high-profile successful case associated with industry transition was the world first comic-based 3D movie “The Arti: The Adventure Begins” which featured traditional puppet character performance and intriguing plots of Pili International Media.
Pili Chairman Chris Huang acted as the chief director of the film. The production crew consisted of the special effect team of Bigger Picture INC., the distribution channels of Puppetmotion Entertainment CO., LTD, the sound effect team of Du-Chih, Tu, and Evergreen Symphony Orchestra in charge of film score. The box office in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan was expected to surpass NTD 700 million. More than 2000 movie theaters in China from first tier major cities to third tier satellite cities and more than 70 theaters in Taiwan put the film on screen simultaneously.
The plot of the film was based on the legend of Kroraina and added in sci-fi and adventure elements. The shooting methods and the way of performance separated distinctively from the traditional puppetry so that audience could appreciate the show from a new perspective and enjoy the amazing acting of the puppets. To generate discussions and increase the attractiveness of the movie, the production team invited two famous singers A-Lin and Ricky Hsiao participating in the project and each voice-acting for a puppet. In 2011, the motion effect research and development of the project was subsidized by the “Digital Content Industry Development Subsidiary Project”. Further, Industrial Development Bureau also introduced professionals from Hollywood as consultants to solve difficulties related to technologies, equipment, and the lack of experts in special fields. The model set up a great paradigm for technology upgrading. Finally, it took three years to complete the whole case.
Pili International Media started from traditional puppetry. By providing high quality content or copyright authorization, the company dramatically expanded it business and increased in scale. Related markets covered a wide variety of fields such as TV series, movies, electronic commerce, TV station broadcasting, large scale exhibitions, product endorsement, and accessory authorization. In 2014, Pili attracted 21.1 billion NTD investment from the stock market and became the first puppetry company to be listed on Taiwan Stock Exchange. This is a successful transformation and cross-field integration paradigm of domestically originated Taiwanese art form.
In the future, Pili will continue to enlarge its audience base by accurately broadcasting to target audiences through the Internet. First of all, the company will cooperate with mainland video firms introducing the art of puppetry to China market. Secondly, Pili will collaborate with the world biggest internet platform bringing puppetry to areas such as North America and Singapore where millions of Chinese congregate and form the most important markets. Moreover, by the world first motion picture puppetry movie “The Arti: The Adventure Begins”, Pili holds the chance taking Taiwan domestic puppetry art to the world stage.
Digital content industry is one of the fields that the Emerging Industry Division is diligently working on. The outstanding results of Pili undoubtedly provided a role model for the industry. “The Arti: The Adventure Begins” not only overcame technology difficulties but also reached a new milestone for the motion picture industry in Taiwan.
In the future, to create much more value for the industry, the Emerging Industry Division will progressively assist the firms in associated markets such as B4G/5G communication system, new drugs and medical devices, 3D printing, electronic devices and manufacturing process for the next generation, electronic vehicles and energy saving system, smart cities and the Internet of things, cloud and big data systems, strategic services, design services, and intelligent automation engineering technology.
【Media Contact】
Industrial Development Bureau, MOEA: Mr. Lin
Tel: 02-27541255#2211
Email: jclin@moeaidb.gov.tw