During the filming of Hill of No Return, which was named best picture in Taiwan’s 1992 Golden Horse Awards, director Wang Tung (王童) found himself facing a frustrating problem. Despite working for the Central Motion Picture Corp., one of the island’s largest film companies, Wang couldn’t find enough technicians to begin filming. “The company only has four lighting technicians, but we needed seven, plus six lighting assistants,” Wang says. “We put great effort into trying to find them. Finally, some other film companies provided their lighting technicians and put an end to our embarrassment.”
Such difficulties are not uncommon, even for Taiwan’s top directors and largest film companies. “In Taiwan, it’s hard to find a good recording technician or film editor, let alone someone with specialized skills such as computerized special effects,” says Wang Wei (王瑋), a film instructor at Fu Jen Catholic University and the World College of Journalism. One reason for the dearth of well-trained film technicians is the limited opportunity for either academic or professional training.
The problem has cultural roots, says Lee Hsing (李行), a long-time film director and president of the Directors Guild of Taiwan. Lee says film has long suffered by not being considered an art form worthy of academic study. “I proposed establishing a film college to the Ministry of Education several years ago,” he says. “But because of the government’s indifference and financial problems, it was turned down.”
Acting classes in the attic—Only six colleges offer film classes, and they tend to be a low funding priority. Here, film students at the Chinese Culture University make do with minimal facilities and equipment.
Taiwan has no specialized film school and only one college, the National Taiwan College of Arts, with a film department. The school has offered a film program for thirteen years, but until 1994 students received only a three-year junior college degree. The first class of twenty-five students are now enrolled in the new four-year film program, which includes sixty credits of required courses such as film editing, scriptwriting, directing, film technology, and film production.
But the new program has yet to prove itself, and according to film critic Peggy Chiao (焦雄屏), a columnist for the daily China Times Express, the junior college film program was not highly respected. Another problem, Chiao says, is that the program’s film professors are not professionals in the industry themselves and can provide only limited expertise.
Yu Ping-chang gives film personnel an alternative to the limited opportunities for academic study through the Motion Picture Production Association’s program on film business know-how.
Beyond the National Taiwan College of Arts, opportunities for film study are scarce. Four universities offer courses in film as part of their mass communications departments—Fu Jen Catholic University, Tamkang University, Ming Chuan College, and the World College of Journalism and Communications—and the Fu Hsing Kang College and the Chinese Culture University offer film courses in their drama and cinema departments. But each of these schools offers only a few film classes, and there are no graduate programs in film, although the Chinese Culture University plans to offer graduate-level film courses in the 1995-96 school year.
Professors in the field say film education suffers from more than limited academic opportunities. Ideally, according to Liu Hsiao-peng (劉效鵬), chairman of the Drama and Cinema Department at the Chinese Culture University, local students with talent and interest in film should begin studying the subject at one of Taiwan’s three special arts high schools, then progress to undergraduate studies in film. But under the college entrance system, there are no opportunities for film students to seek admission based on artistic merit. Instead, all prospective students must take the highly competitive Joint University Entrance Exam and are admitted into a specific major based on their scores. Only the top 40 percent or so are admitted into university or college. For students who have focused on the arts, the exam—which covers Chinese, English, mathematics, history, geography, and the philosophy of Dr. Sun Yat-sen—may be especially challenging. The result is that many interested students are not admitted. “This system locks out students who have specialized in film study but who aren’t good at taking exams,” Liu says.
Lee Hsing, president of the Directors Guild of Taiwan—“Film equipment is as crucial to a film department as medical equipment is to a medical school.”
At the same time, some of those who are studying film are not interested in the subject. They joined the department simply because they could not test into, say, the English or business department. Liu explains that some prospective students list film, communications, or drama as a second or third choice major because these programs are generally less sought after.
Underlying these problems is a longstanding lack of respect for the film industry. “Chinese tend to look down on those who work in the film business, especially actors,” says Chen Mei-ching (陳梅靖), chairman of the Motion Picture Department at National Taiwan College of Arts. For years, the local movie business was built on grade-B romance and adventure films, and the image has led to a lasting belief that movies are more a low-quality entertainment form than an art form.
Another obstacle has been Taiwan’s depressed film industry. “My university’s proposal to establish a film department was denied several years ago by the Ministry of Education because they thought the current job market for film graduates was weak,” says Liu Hsiao-peng of the Chinese Culture University.
National Taiwan College of Arts began offering Taiwan’s first and only four-year film degree program in 1994. The department received funding of only US$35,000.
Outside academic circles, several professional training programs in film offer alternatives, for would-be film students. Since 1990 the Directors Guild of Taiwan, with funding from the Council of Cultural Planning and Development, has offered three-month training programs on directing and scriptwriting, each with positions for about thirty students. The guild soon hopes to offer additional programs in acting, cinematography, and sound.
The Motion Picture Production Association has offered acting courses for about eighty students annually since 1969, and last year added a film management and production program for another forty students. The film management course requires that applicants first pass an entrance exam, and both programs require students to serve a two-month internship. Program Supervisor Yu Ping-chang (余炳章) says the new courses will “teach film producers and managers to combine the arts with business know-how.” Yu has been pleased with the quality of applicants to the programs; ninety percent of those admitted hold at least an undergraduate degree. “We are glad to see that more well-educated young people are willing to improve Taiwan films,” he says.
While these programs are more accessible than the limited academic opportunities in film, they have been criticized for being provincial in scope and limited in expertise. Critic Peggy Chiao, for example, believes that some instructors in these programs are poorly qualified.
Chen Mei-ching, chairman of the film department at the National Taiwan College of Arts, says social attitudes have affected the quality of film education—“Chinese tend to look down on those who work in the film business.”
Both in universities and in the professional training programs, one major challenge has been funding for film equipment. “Film is a technological field,” says Liu Hsiao-peng. “New technologies change movies. Film equipment is as crucial to a film department as medical equipment is to a medical school. We strongly need equipment and we must upgrade it constantly. And this is costly.” Last year, the public funding for the film department of the National Taiwan College of Arts was under US$35,000, while the film courses at the Chinese Culture University received just a fraction of the university’s funding of US$115,000 to the drama department. Such slim funding allowances result in insufficient or outdated equipment. As a result, only the National Taiwan College of Arts is capable of filming and recording sound simultaneously, and the college lacks a studio.
Several schools have attempted to raise funds themselves, but have met with frustrations. The Chinese Culture University’s Drama and Cinema Department plans to raise money from alumni, but the concept goes against long-standing traditions. “Chinese culture is different from Western culture,” says department chairman Liu Hsiao-peng. “Most Chinese give to their families rather than to their community. They leave their money to their next generation, or they donate to a political group rather than to a cultural entity such as a school.”
Wang Wei, film instructor at Fu Jen Catholic University—“In Taiwan, it’s hard to find a good recording technician or film editor, let alone someone with specialized skills such as computerized special effects.”
Public schools have been doubly frustrated because of government regulations. Donations to a school are not tax-free. Also, under ROC law, public schools cannot solicit donations for themselves. “The donated money belongs to the country, not to the recipient,” says Chen Mei-ching of the National Taiwan College of Arts. “It is up to the government to distribute the money to different schools. In other words, if businesspeople want to donate money to my school, there’s no guarantee that we would get it.”
The government has instigated some programs to boost film education. In 1993, which the government designated as National Film Year, the GIO sponsored a US$577,000 program with courses on film production, set design, sound, and cinematography, with a special emphasis on internships. The program also included a series of lectures by distinguished professionals such as James Schamus, the U.S. producer of The Wedding Banquet. But while these programs brought positive responses, they were discontinued after the year ended. “The government’s efforts to improve Taiwan films should certainly be praised, but these efforts seem to have lasted for a very brief time,” says Lee Hsing of the Directors Guild. “We hope the government will offer regular training programs to encourage talented people to enter the film industry.”
Internships are an important source of training, but local opportunities for practical study in film are limited. No universities require film students to serve an internship because they are so difficult to find. Those students who do arrange them often work only during the two-month summer break and, according to Chen Mei-ching of the National Taiwan College of Arts, often receive only minimal training. “Film companies don’t have much time to teach students on the job,” he says.
Courses sponsored by the Motion Picture Production Association offer much needed study opportunities in acting, film management, and production.
Lecturer Wang Wei, who received a degree in cinema studies from the City University of New York, points out that both academic and professional training opportunities are far greater in the United States. For example, most local schools require film students to produce an experimental film. But while U.S. students can take advantage of a large pool of would-be actors eager to work on such films, local students have no such resources. And while the film departments at many large American schools benefit by offering bachelor’s, master’s, and even doctorate programs, the local smattering of undergraduate courses offer no such depth. Within Asia, Taiwan lacks the film colleges of Mainland China and the professional training opportunities in Hong Kong, which produces better film technicians as well as actors. In the colony, there is a long tradition of training film stars through TV stations. Film critic Peggy Chiao says Taiwan did not develop this tradition because its government-controlled TV stations were not as commercially oriented.
For these reasons, many local film students try to get into film departments overseas. At the National Taiwan College of Arts, Professor Chen Mei-ching estimates that about half of film graduates seek advanced study overseas. The United States is the first choice for most.
Ray Jiing, director of the National Film Archive, urges the government to sponsor more film festivals—“If the public becomes more sophisticated in movie appreciation, the level of films can be upgraded.”
The initial step in improving film education, many in the industry believe, is to establish a few well-respected film departments. “The Ministry of Education should establish film colleges in distinguished public universities like National Taiwan University and National Chengchi University,” says Ray Jiing (井迎瑞), director of the National Film Archive. He stresses that the government should regard film as an art such as music, painting, and dance, and should increase its education budget. Film education, he believes, also should be more firmly rooted in the secondary and primary schools. Also, the government should expand film education for the public by sponsoring more film festivals and other promotional events. “If the public becomes more sophisticated in movie appreciation, the level of films can be upgraded,” Jiing says.
Many in the movie business consider film education and training programs integral to building and upgrading the industry. “Film education is like the foundation of filmmaking,” says Peggy Chiao. “If the foundation is not steady and strong, it is difficult to make great films.”