Beginning of Spring
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
February 4th, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, is also the "立春"(lìchūn, lit. "the beginning of spring") in Chinese traditional solar terms, which is generally regarded as the "beginning of spring". The ceremony began with a 24-second countdown, which represented the 24th Winter Olympics as well as the 24 solar terms in the Chinese calendar. After the countdown, 393 dancers carried tall and flexible glowing green stalks, echoing the images of spring on the ground screen: flowers, windmills, swallows, moons, wickers and butterflies. It was green at first, representing "spring returns to the earth, all things wake up", and gradually the dancers in the center of the venue waved their long stalks to form a white dandelion. Little girls on the ground screen blew dandelions, and the white seeds floated up the long vertical screen into the sky, following Cai Guoqiang's(蔡国强) white fireworks, as if countless dandelion seeds blooming over the Bird's Nest，displaying the words "立春" and "SPRING" to celebrate the start of spring.
《立春》。2月4日，北京冬奥会开幕式举办日期，也是中国传统节气的立春，通常被视为“春天的开始”。仪式以24秒倒计时开始，代表了第24届冬奥会以及中国历法中的24个节气。倒计时结束后，393个舞者们拿着长长的、柔韧的、发光的绿杆，与地屏上春天的影像咬合呼应，花，风车，飞燕，明月，柳条，蝴蝶。初时是绿色，代表“春回大地，万物苏醒”，渐渐的会场中央舞者们挥着长杆，形成一朵白色的蒲公英，当地屏上的小女孩吹散蒲公英，白色的种子顺着长长的竖屏漂向天空，与蔡国强先生创作的白色烟花交相辉映，仿佛无数的蒲公英种子在鸟巢上空绽放，盛放中英文“立春”和“SPRING”，庆祝春天的开始。
Zhang Yimou(张艺谋）X Joe Wang X Blackbow(黑弓) X Jody Xiong(熊超）
Zhang Yimou(张艺谋） Jody Xiong(熊超）
Jody Xiong
Being A Part of the Team of Zhang Yimou, Chief Director of the Opening Ceremonies of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
The Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics had their grand opening ceremonies at the Bird's Nest on February 4th and March 4th 2022. Incredibly, Jody Xiong(熊超）, the legendary Chinese advertising creator, was invited to join zhang Yimou's team as the visual effect director and visual artist of the two opening ceremonies. As the founder and creative director of The Nine in Shanghai, Jody Xiong, also an art director, designer, artist and director, is the most diverse and groundbreaking creative star in China. He has won more than 500 creative design awards. For example, He was named as one of the Asia's top 12 most awarded creative leaders by Campaign Brief Asia; he was the first Chinese winner of the Golden Design Lion award at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity; He also won 21 nominations, including the Silver Design Lion and the Bronze Film Lion with a high degree of difficulty; 6 Pencils at British D&AD; 9 Cubes at New York ADC and 16 Merit Awards; 8 Statues at Clio Awards; 5 Pencils at One Show and 18 Merit Awards; 30 Trophies at ADFEST including 2 Grand Prix and 5 Golden Awards; 16 Statues at London International Advertising Awards; Golden EPICA Award and Golden Andy Award; 6 Red Dot Design Awards in German; He has entered the list of top designers in Forbes China; in 2021, he ranked the third in the Best Advertising Director of Asia-pacific region in the Global One Show and New York ADC Ranking. His works have been featured by New York MOMA, CANAL+, TIMES, VICE, The Guardian, WIRED, Huffington Post, ART TIMES and through many other media outlets.
Zhang Yimou(张艺谋), an international film master. The films he directed have won numerous awards at international film festivals, including two Golden Lions in Venice and one Golden Bear in Berlin both for Best Picture, three Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and five Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Language Film Award. He is also the world's first "double Olympic Chief Director" of the opening and closing ceremonies of summer and Winter Olympics. Last March, Mr. Zhang was seeking Chinese creative power. Joe Wang(王志鸥), the director of visual effect of Winter Olympics and the founder of Blackbow(黑弓) Digital Technology, scouted for a group of new media visual effect experts throughout the country and recommended them to Zhang Yimou, the chief director of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Fortunately, Joe Wang found Jody Xiong. Being nervous, excited and expecting, Jody grasped the rare opportunity in his life. After all, the chief director he would cooperate is a film and aesthetic master. The portfolio works alone were prepared for a whole week. Mr. Zhang went through all works and selected seven digital artists, a bit like the plot of Akira Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai, each with his own unique skills and strengths, and Jody Xiong as the representative for creative advertising and design. Since May last year, seven digital artists had gathered in Beijing for countless brainstorm, discussion, proposal, modification and re-proposal, together with the chief director Zhang Yimou and visual effects director Joe Wang, from the Bird's Nest to the Blackbow office to Zhang Yimou's studio. Chief director Zhang Yimou repeatedly stressed that the team must apply Chinese elements to create original ideas, tell Chinese stories well, and follow the tone of ethereal, aesthetic and romantic. The huge ground screen and vertical screen of the Bird's Nest should be skillfully used so that the digital, design, technology, performance and art can be integrated together, with "Chinese-style romance" being delivered to the world.
It was a long and difficult process, full of uncertainty, surprise and excitement. Chief director Zhang Yimou led Chinese creative team, denying one idea after another, and giving birth to one more perfect idea after another. In the final decision of the opening ceremony, Jody Xiong, as one of the visual effect directors, joined China's top digital technology team Blackbow to participate in the countdown projects of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony named Beginning of Spring.
“I’ve been longing for the opportunity to create works that are truly beyond advertising. Beginning of Spring, Tribute to the People and The Bloom incorporate oriental aesthetics and technology. It’s the result of teamwork, containing countless days and nights of painstaking efforts by countless people. I would like to thank chief director Zhang Yimou for his appreciation and guidance, and also visual effect director Joe Wang and Cai Guoqiang. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in these two great events and let Chinese creative power be seen by the world.” Jody Xiong said proudly .
