Taiwan #2: Jiufen

Jiufen is often referred to as being the inspiration for the setting of Spirited Away, which is one of my favorite Miyazaki films. Although Miyazaki himself disputes this claim, I can certainly see the similarities. Either way, after visiting the town, I can assuredly say this: Jiufen is a magical place.

We made our way through the mountains on a small bus that we had boarded in Taipei that was set for Jiufen. As we climbed higher and higher, we caught glimpses of the radiant water of the East China Sea. Tucked away in the mountains of the Ruifang District, Jiufen was once an industrious gold mining town. During the Japanese occupation, allied POW soldiers who were held there were forced to work in the mines.

After we got off the bus, we saw a large crowd funneling into a small gap between some buildings on the street. Despite the unassuming appearance, this was the main entrance to Jiufen. I soon learned that Jiufen is a web of narrow alleyways, lined with storefronts and street carts. The main path carves its way up the mountain and each turn reveals new sights and mouthwatering smells.

We made frequent stops to taste different foods and snacks along the path. This is where I had one of my favorite desserts in Taiwan, the A-Zhu Peanut Ice Cream Roll, a sweet burrito stuffed with grounded up peanut candy and taro ice cream. We also browsed several shops, including an ocarina shop with decorative roots growing along the walls and ceiling. Tunnels branched off the main path and led away from the crowds into beautiful mountainside landscapes.

There were a surprising amount of animals to see along the way. There were lots of napping cats and dogs (some stray and some belonging to the shop owners). The cats appeared to take great satisfaction in claiming the seats of motos as their personal napping spots.

As the sun began to set, Tiana and I started looking for a nice place to drink tea and enjoy the view. Instead of going to one of the popular spots, or doing research, we simply wandered around and eventually stumbled upon a strange cave. It was covered in white writing and had a small sign that promised tea. We squeezed through the cave and emerged on the other side to discover a beautiful garden with a statue of Buddha.

We made our way into the tea shop, and noticed that there were tea kettles by each table, heated by hot coals. We enjoyed the best Oolong I've ever had paired with some savory roasted beans. We watched the town and the coast beyond fade from orange to purple to dark blue and the lights slowly begin to flicker on. In the distance, we could hear echoes of a sweet-sounding tune, which we later discovered was music from the garbage truck.

We packed up some of the tea and descended back through the streets to the bus stop. Jiufen had completely transformed during our time in the hidden tea shop. The streets were just as crowded as before, but took on a new quality as they were now illuminated from the warm light of glowing lanterns. 

Before returning back to our hostel we stopped at the infamous night market in Keelung, where we enjoyed braised pork rice, Taiwanese sausage, pork bun with peanuts, and the infamous oyster omelettes that I’d been eager to try since watching Anthony Bourdain eat them on Parts Unknown.
 

Taiwan #1: Taipei

This is the first post in my Taiwan series. I took a ton of a photographs on my trip and I'm excited to finally be sharing them. I've organized the photos by location. We started and ended our journey in the capital, Taipei.

Taipei is an amazing city. Its technology is cutting edge, the public transportation is abundant and efficient, and the food is fantastic. The streets are lined with vendors, selling everything from fruit to braised pork, and many areas turn into special night markets after the sun sets. I went on to learn that this love of food is pervasive throughout the country. While Taipei is so advanced in many ways, remnants of the past can be seen throughout the city, both in the culture and the architecture. Taiwan was occupied by the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and China, so it's not hard to find influences from those nations throughout the city.

Another thing that struck me was the subtropical climate. There were a surprising amount of trees and plants throughout the city. The vegetation appearing to reclaim the narrow alleyways between heavily Japanese influenced structures gives the feeling of the brighter side of an apocalypse.

We stayed at a fantastic hostel called Star Hostel. If you are ever staying in Taipei, I would strongly recommend staying at this world renowned (and affordable) hostel. They have a beautiful common area with lots of trees growing inside and a projector that's usually hooked up to a Nintendo Switch or screening Miyazaki films. Many people in Taiwan are big fans of both of these things, which works out great for me because I am too.

The first thing we did when we got there was eat some authentic and delicious beef noodle soup, along with some fantastic braised boar with sweet potato in rice. I also got one of my favorite drinks, Apple Sidra.

After that, we wandered down some of the narrow streets, eventually making our way to Taipei 101, which is considered one of the original "Evil Buildings." Whenever I'm traveling in a new city, I like to get up as high as I possibly can and look around at the city from a bird's eye perspective. Sometimes the best I can get is a hill top, or the roof of my hotel. But here we were able to get to the top of one of the world's tallest buildings. It was beautiful to be able to see the city from so high up, and see it slowly transition from day to night, and watch the city light up in a new way.

Inside of Taipei 101 is a special structural marvel that's known as a tuned mass damper. It's a giant ball filled with steel that is suspended near the top of the building. The ball, weighing in at 660 tons, acts as pendulum to help stabilize the building during extreme typhoon winds and earthquakes.

While at the top of Taipei 101, we spotted an interesting-looking park that was shaped like a flower. We went to check out the park up close for a bit, discovering a unique labyrinth of paths and canals. It seems unlikely that anyone would be able to tell that it was a flower from down below, which shows the beauty of taking opportunities to get multiple perspectives.

We finally made our way to a movie theater near Taipei 101 and watched A Quiet Place. If you are planning on watching a movie in Taiwan, it's worth noting that people don't show up early for movies (at least in our experience). In fact they don't let you in until the ticket time, and without any trailers, the movie starts. Despite how intense the film was, we had a hard time keeping our eyes open after such a long first day.

5 Camera Movements Used by Master Filmmakers

Since the birth of cinema, filmmakers have been making innovations in the ways to move cameras. There are countless methods of moving the camera: handheld, dollies, steadicams, sliders, drones, and programmable telescopic technocranes—to name a few. As technology advances, we will continue to break barriers until the only limits in camera movements will be our imaginations. All of this technology is undeniably awesome, but that doesn’t always mean it’s always the best choice for a given story. In order for a camera move to be truly effective, it must be motivated in some way. The motivation can be because of the scene’s action, a way of getting into the state of mind of the characters, or simply to add a particular kind of energy. I like the comparison of movement to music. Camera movement can have a huge influence in how you perceive a scene, much in the same way that a soundtrack can—you can have a similar impact with a soaring crane shot or a soaring orchestra. Here is some work from five filmmakers who have found particularly creative and innovative ways of moving the camera, despite the technological (and budgetary) limitations they were faced with. (SPOILER WARNING for the following films)

25TH HOUR

The “double-dolly” or “ride-along” is one of Spike Lee’s signature moves, and can be seen throughout his work to varying degrees of success. In my opinion, 25th Hour showcases the most effective use of this technique. The move involves having an actor stand in front of the camera, usually on a dolly (but sometimes on a crane or other rig), and moving the camera so that they move with it. This creates a very surreal effect and feels like the character is floating through the scene. I wonder if one of the reasons it’s so unsettling (and this is just a loose theory) is because it feels both objective and subjective. It feels a bit subjective because when we are walking, our brain does a decent job of nullifying the movements to give us the illusion of floating, and at the same time, we are seeing that character floating as well, so it feels almost like an out of body experience. The reason it works so well in 25th Hour is because when it is used, it is motivated by the state of mind of the characters. The character above is feeling euphoric on ecstasy. When another character does something unspeakable later in the film, we see the same type of movement. So an out of body experience for both of the situations makes sense.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

Darren Arronosfky has experimented with the use of Snorricam since his first film, Pi. A Snorricam is a fascinating device that attaches the camera to the actor, pointed at their upper body. It is a similar concept to the double-dolly, as the camera is attached to the actor and moves with them, but because of the nature of how humans move it has almost the opposite effect. While the actor is fixed in the frame, because the camera is tied to their movements, the background and horizon are dependent on their movements as well. So every micro-shake is amplified in the background. This can be incredibly sickening, but it can also be a brilliant effect when used at the right times. During Requiem for a Dream, it’s often used during intense moments of anxiety and panic. You can almost feel the adrenaline running through your veins as you watch these shots, proving just how effective the choice is.

The evil Dead

While in production of 1981’s The Evil Dead, director Sam Raimi and the crew came up with countless innovations not only in special effects, but in creative ways of moving the camera. The extremely limited budget of $350,000 forced them to come up with inventive ways of moving the camera. Raimi loves an active camera, which is in full force during the Evil Dead series. One of the most iconic movements is the POV of the demon speeding through the forest. Raimi’s team came up with what’s called a Shaky-Cam to bring this vision to life. It is essentially a 2x4 piece of wood with the camera bolted onto it. To operate the Shaky-Cam, two people run on either side of the piece of wood, “flying” the camera between them. This cheap rig gave the camera a special shaky, aggressive energy that perfectly embodied the demonic spirit.

ENTER THE VOID

Similar to The Evil Dead, Enter the Void also seeks to recreate the POV of a spirit. But rather than a demonic presence, its goal is to show a human spirit both inside of a living body and after it has parted ways. It’s a wonderful challenge for a film, and despite its flaws, Enter the Void handles this task magnificently. The beginning part of the film is inside a person’s physical perspective. So we see everything he sees, including blinking, and even hallucinations as the character does drugs. But the real fascinating part of the film comes later on when the character dies and the spirit departs from the body and begins flying around going into objects and experiencing memories. Gaspar Noe makes wonderful use of physical crane movements, blended and stitched together with CGI, to create the hypnotic and fluid movements of the spirit.

CHILDREN OF MEN

One challenge that many filmmakers often face is how to keep the camera interesting and dynamic within the confines of a car. There have been a multitude of solutions for this problem and there are even films like 2013’s Locke, which takes place entirely in a car. But the film that has the most outstanding car sequence I’ve ever seen is Alfonso Cauron’s Children of Men (which contains some of the best scenes in recent cinema--not just in cars). Cauron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki had a special car built that allowed them to move the camera freely around the interior of the car. In keeping this all one fluid shot, it places you in the car with the characters and lets you experience the action with them, as it develops in real time.

CONCLUSION

All of these filmmakers are masters at moving the camera and have found truly unique ways in which to implement their envisioned movements into their films. It’s an important takeaway that all of these movements were strongly motivated by the action, the character’s emotional state, and the intended energy. The reason that these filmmakers are master visual-storytellers is not because of the movements or the tactics they use, but because they know exactly which movements to use for the right parts of their story. It’s also interesting to see that each of these filmmakers have been almost obsessively experimenting with similar movements throughout their careers. As their craft improves, they are able to refine the exact movements they want, and as technology improves, it’s easier for them to achieve it precisely. These movements are just one aspect of what has become their visual language and voices as filmmakers. I will be exploring other techniques that filmmakers use in the future so please keep an eye out for them!