Tim Yip: The current costume drama is almost completely "animated".

Author | Yan Fei

Edit | Su Wei

题图 | 《凝望：我的摄影与人生》

What kind of experience do you get from talking to an artist?

If it is Tim Yip, then the answer may be "like a spring breeze". Although he has been well-known in the aesthetic world for more than 20 years, he has always maintained a gentle tone when facing reporters. Even if it is a question that can be answered in one or two sentences, he is willing to tell his own thoughts and experiences from the beginning, and he spares no detail when explaining proper nouns.

When it comes to personal expression, Tim Yip is never bound by a single approach. Born in a photography class, and because his photography works happened to be discovered by Tsui Hark, who visited the exhibition, he got the opportunity to serve as an executive artist in the film crew. Since then, he has been seen in films, stages, art exhibitions and even the Olympic arena.

It's hard not to be curious about Tim Yip when you're interested in classical Chinese aesthetics. In fact, in the face of the tide of the times, his inner hesitation and anxiety are no less than others. He wants to appear as a photographer, and he takes the initiative to talk about the impact of AI technology on him, and he especially empathizes with young people who are coerced by mainstream aesthetics.

Whether it is photography or other artistic fields, Tim Yip is still trying to keep up with the same frequency and resonance with this era: "What (we) human beings want is to have a soul."

"The influence of Jin Yong's works,

It's like Shakespeare's dramatic effect."

 New Weekly: What kind of art director exists in the crew, and what role can art design and modeling play in a film or series?

 Tim Yip: There are three situations.

For example, when making a movie in Hollywood, there will be many departments in the crew. Every department, including the fine arts, thinks about how to complete all the work with limited funds to ensure the needs of the film shots. You can't go over your budget too much, and you can't use something that's too poor quality.

If you are involved in an independently produced film and there is no big production, if you want the film to be attractive to the audience, you must pay attention to the creation of film style and artistry. The art director should envision different images according to the story, what colors to use, and how to arrange them, so that the scene is rich enough and can match the plot. This kind of style is relatively strong, and it is often called literary films.

The third situation is that the director has a strong sense of dominance in the film, based on his personal understanding of the drama, through the grasp of material, color, texture, scene, and scheduling, the rendering power of some realistic stories that cannot be achieved is reflected through the film language of TA. Like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", in the end, two people are flying in the bamboo forest, why doesn't the audience feel strange? It is because the art director understands what the story wants to tell and knows why there is such a trend, and he paved the way in the early stage of the film, and did subtle processing, so that the film can present the so-called "singularity" effect. A really good art director can do that, and this is closely related to the height of the director.

In 1999, on the set of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Ang Lee was guiding Zhang Ziyi. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

 New Weekly: You said before that what you embody in your work is not "classical", but "appropriate". When it comes to specific operations, how to grasp this "appropriate" degree?

 Tim Yip: Just give me an example. When Li Shaohong filmed "Daming Palace Ci", I had just met her. She told me to go to Beijing. At that time, there was already a room full of clothes, but the style was not uniform. She said that the TV series was going to start filming in 10 days, and she was in pain and asked me if there was anything I could do. So the whole style was made in a very short time.

The play itself is not particularly realistic. If you want to make the charm of the Tang Dynasty, you have to make some trade-offs. At that time, the industry liked to use Korean yarn (organza) for costumes, which was very stiff, and the clothes were all flat cuts, not three-dimensional cuts, and there was no waist design. I cut the clothes directly on the spot, and did a lot of waist adjustments, using my years of experience in modeling classical dance. Later, many TV series also used this method to solve the problem of version.

At that time, I wanted to do something very different. You can see that the whole collection is quite innovative, with large hems, skirts, very particular colors, and the fabric itself is very beautiful. With the right matching, and then make appropriate adjustments and cuts to the clothes, you can present a neoclassical style. Like Chen Hong's style, there is a very strong Shakespearean flavor, the hairstyle and decoration are very expressive, and the overall shape can already present a certain drama. Even if Zhou Xun wears a feather coat, it will not be unbelievable, because the audience knows that this drama is not framed in a realistic concept.

Zhou Xun was dressed in a feather coat. (Photo/"Daming Palace Words")

 New Weekly: In the 2003 edition of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", you also styled Zhou Xun, and at that time, you studied more of the daily clothing characteristics and hairstyles of women in the Song Dynasty, and the style she made seemed quite "down-to-earth". What did you think about it at the time?

 Tim Yip: Although I only modeled Zhou Xun at that time, I still had to keep up with the tone of the whole play. I still used some more contemporary cuts, following the feeling of the actors, so that this "Huang Rong" is more "Zhou Xunwei".

In fact, until now, I have not had the opportunity to do a complete design for Jin Yong's works. Jin Yong himself is very knowledgeable, he is a miscellaneous family, familiar with history, can write medical knowledge, Chinese traditions, etc. into the story, and can also write things related to martial arts in detail. He is very imaginative and good at writing feelings, and many people say that his best work is "The Condor Heroes".

I think the most important thing is that his works have been building an imaginary world of rivers and lakes, presenting an idealized chivalrous spirit. His works are both popular and literary, inheriting the characteristics of the late Qing Dynasty novels that are both entertaining and Chinese cultural heritage. Everyone can understand it, which is why Jin Yong's works are so popular.

It's actually quite difficult to make art for Jin Yong's works. Because everyone is too familiar with Jin Yong's characters, you don't need to establish (the character image), you can retreat a little further. The characters he created are typical, so much so that he has influenced many later film and television works. This is like the effect of Shakespeare's plays, but Jin Yong's works have influenced TV dramas more and affected the development of popular culture.

Tim Yip's "Huang Rong" shape. (Photo/"The Legend of the Condor Heroes")

 New Weekly: How do you reflect the different latitudes of "classical" in your work?

 Tim Yip: For example, court dramas are mainly in the (indoor) space, which is more static, so (the modeling should be) more detail-oriented, while martial arts films pay more attention to action, and the costumes should make the action look better. But you can also do the other way around, and everyone has the right to innovate.

For example, "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun" is a very ambitious attempt, and it is very large, and my assistants have 1,000 people. Every department (on this scale) is out, everything is done in detail and over a long period of time.

It's very different from the (early) Hong Kong films, where they were often like, "Wow, it's going to be made now, you're going to change things out soon".

We will finish the things we need to use a lot in advance, so that we have enough time to revise them, and nothing is forced out. The carpenter has several carving places, and the props made are very realistic; almost every shape has to wear five or six layers of clothes, the materials are very good, and everyone has to wear clothes for a long time. The reason why this movie can have such results today is also because our hard work is very deep.

Stills from "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun". (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

"We're not talking about cultural forms.

It's the possibility of people absorbing culture."

 New Weekly: In addition to film and television dramas, you have also worked as an art director for many stage plays with different themes, what is the difference between the requirements of the two?

 Tim Yip: Different forms, different requirements are different, and the focus is also different. Most of the time you can only see so much of the movie (compared to painting it from the top of the head to the chest), it is difficult to see the whole body, mainly to see the expressions of the actors. When you watch a stage play, the actors are standing there, and you can always see it.

There are many types of stage plays. One is the industry, such as classical dance, Peking Opera, etc., its high-soled boots, flags, water sleeves and other clothing accessories, with the action is buckled (together). To shape them, you must follow this complete system. You have to know how to walk the Peking Opera stage, how to dance ballet, and what is the state of the skirt when you dance...... Once you're familiar with the main elements, you can extend a lot of different things, but you still have to make the new design fit the original action needs.

So as far as the stage play is concerned, a lot of times it involves the question of how to perform. For example, drama is more immediate, the actor can go up to perform in an ordinary denim suit, and we need to think more about how to leave enough time for the actor to change the scene; if it is an opera, the actor may wear a more designed, heavier clothes to go up, because he will not move much when he stands up, and he needs to have enough "power" so that the audience will not be bored when he looks at him (all the time).

A still from Lohengrin (Wagner's opera). (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

 New Weekly: In the process of studying history, you don't like to use "a box" to pack, but to see it as a river. How can this be understood, and is your "New Oriental" aesthetic also based on this research method?

 Tim Yip: We are not talking about the form of culture, but about the possibility of people absorbing culture. For example, the hem of a skirt is round, but in different cultures, a round skirt will react differently. I can put things together that no one has seen before, take them out of their original context, and still go well together.

If you look at my works "Night Banquet" and "Red Cliff", you will find that their styles are very different. I believe that everything can be uncertain. Everything will have a certain cultural type of identity, and if you look at it in isolation, you can get more layers of understanding. You can build on the roots of tradition in an endless array of transformations and transformations, and finally present something completely different.

Lohengrin (Wagner's opera) work. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

 New Weekly: You said in an interview earlier that starting with Weng Meiling and Zhao Yazhi, the styling design of the film and television industry in Hong Kong, China, has formed a routine, and everyone has agreed to a certain formula. As far as you can see, is this still the case?

 Tim Yip: It's changed a lot. We know that a lot of things come from opera, before the opera were ancient paintings and statues, and after the opera came Huangmei movies - the actors are generally dressed in two buns, with circle bangs, and clothes that are also very similar to opera clothes. The same is true of the very early films in Hong Kong.

Later, the Japanese style became popular, and a lot of cloth was used to pile it up (one shape). For a while, it was very popular in Hong Kong, China to use different materials to make collages, and people didn't pay much attention to what the costume should look like.

Now, there is a kind of neo-classical in China, and I think it's a bit "anime": the costume is still a Chinese costume, but the colors are very cartoonish and sweet, the clothes are all powder blue, pink, and white, and every character is beautiful, perfect like a doll, and there is no shadow at all. Actors are also looking for similar types of people.

95% of the current costume dramas may be like this. But this is a problem with the business system, the audience has no time to see what characteristics each person has, only to see if this is the most popular now, and whether it is in line with the current aesthetics. If you can't catch the audience for a second, you can't go on.

Stills from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

 New Weekly: But there is another trend that with the development of the times, the audience's knowledge accumulation is increasing, and the requirements for the "restoration" of film and television dramas are gradually increasing.

For example, if there is a costume drama with a similar shape to Japan and South Korea, it will basically arouse public opinion. If it is smaller, there may be a set of clothes in the wrong direction, short sleeves, large openings, not enough to fit, etc., and there will also be audiences who love traditional costumes to watch and discuss. What do you think about this?

 Tim Yip: I think it's pretty good, it shows that they have done their homework very seriously.

Of course, I accept the audience's statement, but there are a lot of problems in making a movie, and sometimes there is really no information. For example, when we were filming "Red Cliff", we really worked with historians to make a curved deep coat, but we found that the actors didn't look good in it. Judging from the current aesthetics, the whole person is too "coarse", and he can't walk.

The real thing depends on the real environment, at that time (in ancient times) you were allowed to walk slowly, and the clothes were built for etiquette. Unless you are making a documentary, but when making a movie, you have to rely on rhythm, beauty, and innovation to grab the audience's attention, and consider it based on the whole performance, rather than obsessing over one side. Everything is perfect, and the audience may not be able to hold on.

But [the discussion] is also good, we have the opportunity to explain to the audience how the film is made, and people can learn more about it, and I think that's good."

On the set of "Fengshen Part 1: Song of the Dynasty", Tim Yip was communicating with director Wu Ershan. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

"If everybody could make a style,

The trend of new Chinese style can really heat up"

 New Weekly: In the past two years, Hanfu has risen, for example, more and more people wear horse-faced skirts on the street. What do you think of this trend?

 Tim Yip: I think that's also a very interesting phenomenon. You know, in London, England, there is a kind of (trend) called vintage, where people wear old clothes in style, and later it influenced Japan, and several styles were formed. I can put aside the "normal" attitude of dressing and choose to express myself, which I find interesting.

But whether there is creativity or not, I think there is still a gap. If you just walk down the street wearing 1:1 restored clothes, it means that they have that awareness, but it may not be fun enough. People who can play can use whimsy to make new feelings from previous clothes, but wearing them is not exactly a set of costumes. Now just wearing Hanfu can only be a phenomenon. If everyone can make a style, I think this new Chinese trend of young people can really heat up. That's what I'm looking forward to seeing.

Once, 1987, Hong Kong, China. On the set of "Rouge Buckle", Tim Yip took a picture of Leslie Cheung through the mirror, and on the far left was Anita Mui, who was looking at him. (Photo/"Gaze: My Photography and Life")

 New Weekly: Your first professional education was photography, whether it was in daily life or on the set, you have photographed many beauties, such as Wang Zuxian, Zhou Xun, Leslie Cheung, etc. Nowadays, everyone has a mobile phone, and young people have begun to pursue a sense of atmosphere and beauty in taking pictures. What do you think about this?

 Tim Yip: In fact, the whole society is blind, and everyone is receiving the most extreme information every day, which leads to the fact that everyone now perceives less and less the beauty of inner diversity and diversity.

Young people are very simple, whoever is cool will follow. Like when you post on social media, you care about the number of likes. Those people are really good-looking, they have 10 million likes, and if they can get 10 million likes, young people will think that this is the best, and I want to be so beautiful.

This creates the illusion that with the approval of many people, it proves that something is good. Everyone wants to be "valuable", and uses a lot of methods to fight for the upper limit of data, which is actually putting the cart before the horse, messing with the really good standard, and there is no way to discover the beauty of other (dimensions) from another angle.

Of course, we all like to take pictures of beautiful people. When I used to take pictures of many actors, I thought they had personalities, and everyone could tell who was who, but today's "beautiful" doesn't seem to be very different. Now everyone can't go beyond the "standard", the eyebrows can't be too thick, can't be boyish, be very innocent, smile naturally, can't have heavy makeup, can't talk about your unhappiness and what you don't like. Isn't that the same for everyone? I feel like it's unique to Asia.

Tim Yip's art film "Love Infinity" work photo. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

 New Weekly: It's been 20 years since you last published a photo album "Liubai". Why did you choose to publish another book of photographs that you have been working on for 40 years, and what does photography mean to you?

 Tim Yip: I really want to be a photographer, but sometimes [photography] becomes a part of my work. In contrast, photography has always seemed like a dream that has not yet been realized. I'd love to show up from the photographer's point of view.

Gaze: My Photography and Life

Tim Yip

Guangxi Normal University Press, 2024-3

My own interests are very divergent, and I'm always looking for ways to express myself. I felt that I needed a lot of different types of artwork to be able to describe the events that I wanted to describe. For me, [this book] is not the last.

I felt that the shooting had to be immersive. I don't really like the kind of digital that doesn't really do anything, it's not photography. You can look at it from another angle, think of it as a kind of painting or something. But photography in my mind is not "fake". We've seen too many images that have been retouched, and they've really been done (on their own faces) and pressed on a flat surface before they are shown to you. There will be fewer and fewer things that can make you feel.

The Spirit is There, Taiwan, 2005. In a wilderness near Penghu, Tim Yip spotted a dog with black and white patterns and stared intently at an abandoned sofa. (Photo/"Gaze: My Photography and Life")

 New Weekly: Has your photographic style changed over the years?

 Tim Yip: I feel like the world has changed more than I am. For example, the influence of digital and the emergence of artificial intelligence have made the real world questioned. In the past, facts were required to have a picture, but now a single photo can be combined into a video, and even a video call can be realized. Sometimes you talk to the person in the video for a long time, but they are not really a real person. If you continue to develop, the colleagues sitting next to you may not be real people in the future.

And when these things come along, you think, what else can you record? You find yourself floating in endless darkness. It's a big change for me. Photography is to make things stop in a certain light and shadow, at a certain angle, and will not change or be copied, and what you see will always be in the past. In the past, we used to know (other people and the world) through photos, but in fact, photos do not represent everything.

I've also said that I take pictures to shoot the next second that is about to happen. I now see a lot of the pictures I've taken, and I press [the shutter] before I'm sure, and there is a kind of uncertainty in that moment. When you shoot, things move, and so does your perception of them. I will try my best to record it before. But what else can photography do when there is no way to complete it? So I'm also trying to go beyond the original definition of photography and break through the limitations of photography.

Blood Rain, 2013, Kyoto, Japan. The snow that falls on the trees gives a red effect under the action of light and shadow. (Photo/"Gaze: My Photography and Life")

 New Weekly: What do you think of the resurgence of film, Polaroid and other carriers?

 Tim Yip: I think the Polaroid is popular because they want to stop being controlled by digital cameras. Whatever the case may be, Polaroid will always record only one real scene. It doesn't even have negatives, it can't be retouched, so it can provide another kind of monumentality, and that monumentality is irreplaceable. Just like everyone is playing vinyl now. Sometimes, you get really tired of some so-called technology, because what human beings want is a soul.

Proofreading: Meet

Operation: Lu Zirui

Typesetting: Duan Meiyu