In the morning, we visited a movie and TV show production company called Studio76, which was founded by Dennis Yang. This company has a lot of influence in both Taiwan and also neighboring countries, both in movie production and in the sourcing of their scripts. They host an annual competition called RisingStories that receives scripts from all over Asia and even the United States. Their main focus is the acquisition of stories and investment into their production. They have since expanded to have other branches that help generate either more stable or more innovative sources of revenue. These branches both use AI to address the challenges that arise when connecting to consumer bases in this era of internet based media transmission.
One branch, Studio886, focuses on the distribution of films across 12 YouTube channels. They use AI primarily to translate and generate subtitles for the dissemination of movies across more diverse consumer bases to gain revenue from the CPMs (cost per minute) of advertisements that differ by country. Dennis mentioned how he would love to have a large consumer base out in Australia in particular since they have one of the highest CPMs. This partnership also allows the company to gain access to YouTube’s data to study patterns in viewership demographics and behavior. For example, some of the studio’s most popular genres are romance (BL in particular) and horror. Horror based on folk religion is a popular subgenre in countries such as Indonesia, whereas supernatural horror is outright censored in countries like China and Vietnam. While horror is a generally accepted genre across countries, the government’s view of religion and/or the supernatural shapes what media is allowed to be imported.
The other branch is called AIM2M, which aims to use Midjourney to cut down costs on turning classic movies into webcomics. This is intended to expand the revenue window for movies and reach newer generations. However, I was curious about the ethical considerations of using AI in this way as this is a moral gray area in the dawning age of AI. The AIM2M program has not yet developed its own AI to do this task, and so it must rely on a publicly available AI that may have pulled art styles from existing comics without permission or compensation. This currently is to be expected when making your work available online, and copyright does not protect against the use of AI as seen in the recent case with Studio Ghibli.
Instead of another company visit, Peter then took us to a popular spot further east called Jioufen. The area is a revitalized mining town whose narrow old street has gone viral for its lantern-lined photo-ops, old tearooms, and gaps between buildings that divulge a view of the East China Sea. We were shown around the main street and stopped in front of the old theater, where we were released for some time to explore on our own.
My goal was to go to one of the teahouses and try one of the oolong blends unique to Taiwan. The oldest teahouse, Jiufen Teahouse, was too expensive but it was a beautiful building to walk around and had many teas and ceramic teasets for sale. You could also walk all the way through to the back and continue through a ceramic workshop, and after exiting that building you would find a road that is emptier but no less pleasant to walk around. We had a better view of the ocean from this road and found a much more affordable option for tea that had some more great views. After a minute we also realized we were pretty close to the POV you see of Jiufen in the Bucknell in Taiwan banner. Prof. Young was also at this teahouse, although he sat inside and snapped some candids of us while we waited for our tea and snacks.
Afterwards, Peter took us to a town called Shifen to release paper lanterns. Each of us got to paint one side of a four sided lantern with our name and our wishes. I thought these were supposed to be small and fit in your hands, but they were actually about half my height. You can see my side in the first frame of the video I included below, which has some stick figure drawings of friends, a heart I drew because I spilled some ink, and a medical cross among other decorations. Many other people were also making and releasing lanterns, as it is what this town is famous for. I noticed that some people had different colors on their lanterns to represent different kinds of fortune or wishes. This monetization of a tradition that is likely rooted in an older cultural or religious practice is another example of how this kind of business can utilize culture to make a profit while also keeping these traditions alive.
At night, the professors treated us to karaoke! Another big thing on my bucket list was to go to a karaoke bar, so I was extremely excited and as were all of my classmates. Prof. Chen kept ordering more and more food, and the quality was honestly so good which I wasn’t totally expecting. We had a great dinner and sung lots of great songs (many of them oldies, their English selection was somewhat limited) and all in all wrapped up the day with a super fun night.
