Taiwan Pavilion Film: “The Taiwan Experience”
From “Film At Expo 74,” American Cinematographer (October 1974):
The Republic of China Pavilion houses a 236-seat theater in which visitors view an ELECTROVISION presentation, “THE TAIWAN EXPERIENCE,” projected by means of 28 Ektagraphic slide projectors and three 16mm Pageant motion picture projectors. These are linked by computer into a multi-media marriage of sight and sound. The resultant audience-involving audio-visual experience is presented on a giant screen forming an 180-degree viewing angle in the theatre.
Through this spectacular medium are depicted the inventions and masterpieces of China, the economic development of Taiwan, and the loveliness of a region which 16th Century Portuguese mariners christened “Illa Formosa” - beautiful island.
From “The Taiwan Experience,” American Cinematographer (October 1974):
A spectacular 26-minute multi-media presentation utilizes sophisticated technology to tell the colorful story of a country and its people.
By Tom Sullivan
The fascinating multi-media show which is presented inside the 235-seat theatre of the Republic of China Pavilion runs so smoothly and effectively that audiences never suspect how much time, money and technical know-how went into it.
The result is a credit to 30-year-old producer Gregor Greig and his equally young team from San Francisco. Greig is a veteran of the large expositions. He worked first at Montreal in 1967, then at Hemisfair in San Antonio a year later, and in 1970 at the giant exposition in Osaka, Japan.
(Original caption) Gregor Grieg, producer of the Electrovision production, “THE TAIWAN EXPERIENCE,” featured in the Republic of China pavilion at EXPO ‘74, shown with the panorama still-camera used for multi-screen pans.
Of his past working experiences, Greig says: “Like most others in the professional movie field, we’ve often had to cut corners, trying to get the job done on time and within budget. But not in this case.”
“We had ample time, a satisfactory budget and full cooperation and total artistic freedom from our Chinese sponsors. There is no compromise on that screen. What we set out to do was done.”
As a result, he was able to put more separate units of equipment into the presentation than perhaps anyone else before him, using the latest Electrosonics 2005 switching unit from England and pushing to the hilt its capacity for five different dissolve rates plus super-imposition.
Though the 74-foot screen presented an unbroken face to the audience, the bank of slide projectors was set up so that seven equal images of 10½ by 10½ feet are formed across its width, with four Kodak Ektagraphic carousels assigned to each panel and seven more Sawyers used for special effects and kaleidoscopic overlays.
(Original caption) Production assistant Kathy Grieg seems unperturbed as she discusses the tight schedule with editor Roger Archey. Nine-month schedule from contract signing to delivery of finished product included theatre design and installation of complex equipment.
Greig, his wife Kathy, who acted as production assistant; Canadian cinematographer Richard Laier, and still photographer Roger Archey made two trips to Taiwan gathering material, with Archey making a staggering 10,000 Ektachromes with a pair of Hasselblads.
Laier used a modified Arri 2C that produced an image ratio of 3 to 1 from sprocket holes to sprocket holes, even on the area where the sound track would normally be.
“That posed a printing problem,” Greig said, “but Joe Lee and his crew at Consolidated Film Industries saw us through to a release print that included 16mm images printed either singly or three side-by-side in that three-to-one frame, which turned out to have the same height as a 16mm normal picture.”
