Production designer -- TIM YIP

Our professor always asks us that whose work when you see you will hope you can do that in the future.

For me, "Tim Yip" is my answer. He is the most famous production designer in Chinese culture. Following is a brief introduction of him. 

A renowned artist, Tim Yip has multidisciplinary works in costume design, visual and contemporary art. For his work in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Tim won the Oscar for Best Art Direction and British Academy Film Award for Best Costume Designer in 2001.   

　　Tim graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic with a degree in photography. Since working on his first film A Better Tomorrow directed by John Woo in 1986, he has accomplished costume designs and art direction for many film and theatrical performances over the past two decades. Tim has collaborated with film directors of international acclaim such as John Woo, Ang Lee, Tsai Ming Liang, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Li Shaohong, Stanley Kwan, Chen Guofu, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang etc. Tim has also worked with many renowned Taiwan theatrical groups such as Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Contemporary Legend Theatre, Han Tang Yue-fu Dance Ensemble, Tai-Gu Tales Dance Theatre, U Theatre, with performances that have toured China, Austria, France, USA, the UK, and Singapore etc. His striking costume design and art direction for the theatre production Medea, television drama Oranges Turn Ripe, feature films Temptation of a Monk and Double Vision have further attracted worldwide attention to his work.

　　In earlier works, Tim introduced his concept of the “New Orientalism” aesthetic, making him an important artist in helping the world understand the beauty of Chinese culture and arts. Since 2002, he has held many costume exhibitions such as Faces of the Time at the Taiwan National Palace Museum, Bourges Maison de la Culture in France and a special photography exhibition in Spain, conveying his interpretation of beauty in Oriental art to Western audiences. In 2004, Tim Yip was the art and costume director for the Beijing handover performance at the Olympic Games closing ceremony in Athens. In recent years, he has held various solo art exhibitions in New York, Beijing and Shanghai.  In 2005, he was invited by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to participate in the China Red exhibition; he also participated in International Asian Art Fair held at The Park Avenue Armory, New York. The Beijing Today Art Museum organized his solo art exhibition Illusions of Silence in late 2007. In 2008, he was invited to participate in Christian Dior’s 60th anniversary exhibition, Dior and Chinese Artists; his work, Floating Leaves Garden, re-opened the dialogue between fashion and art as well as successfully drawing global attention towards Chinese tradition.  Tim has several publications including Lost in Time, Flower of the Wind, Floating, Circulation, Rouge: L’art de Tim Yip (published in both French and English), Illusions of Silence and Passage.

from : http://www.timyipproductions.com/#/biography


Tim yip is one of my favorite designers. His work combined fashion and tradition. Nowadays because of powerful Hollywood industry many countries choose to shoot Hollywood style films and the production design for films also lose traditional beauty.
But in Tim's work you can see the traditional Chinese beauty.
For example, The Banquet (2006).

Trailer

In this movie, no matter costume or set, Tim redesigned Chinese art become new oriental art.

In Chinese culture "white" is a sample of death. White ribbons and candles are the important role in Chinese funeral. Tim used these two things in different way made the funeral in this movie more sad and beautiful. 

Real funeral

Other pictures of The Banquet.