Cross-border cooperation and awards recognition
From there, he went on to serve as special effects supervisor for Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid and the PTS TV series Wake Up 2, the latter earning him the Best Art and Design award at the 2018 Golden Bell Awards, a new career high.
A medical drama, Wake Up 2 demanded realistic effects, and so Chu used his own body as a model for a fake human body, inside which he installed a pump that would create realistic blood-pumping effects for surgery scenes. In the end, he produced a fake body that not only could be cut open and have pieces removed, but was also reusable.
Chu and the actors underwent nearly four months of specialist medical training to understand the use of sutures and hemostatic clips, as well as operating-room procedures. The whole complex process left a profound impression on Chu.
Most unforgettable for him was traveling to Jordan for shooting, where they had to deal with all kinds of challenges, including making the most effective use of the materials and crew time available. For the first explosion sequence, for example, he had just six minutes to complete the makeup for the male protagonist Hsiao Cheng-hsun, played by Jag Huang.
On top of this, both The Mermaid and Wake Up 2 required communicating with cast and crew from different countries. Amid the high-pressure shooting environments, it was fortunate that Chu Chia-yi is a warm, cooperative person, because that helped ensure he didn’t run into too many problems and was even able to learn a bit about other specializations.
In his ten years of experience in film and television, Chu Chia-yi has not only focused on makeup effects, but also observed how the industry environment has changed.