Meet Yiming Zhao

Today we’d like to introduce you to Yiming Zhao.

Hi Yiming, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Born and raised in Beijing, I discovered my love for film at a very early stage of my life. My grandpa who works as a SFX technician in a state film studio frequently brought me to the cinema with him. Even though I had almost no memories of all those black and white Soviet Union movies and probably had never understood any of them, the experience in the dark cinema with a shining silver screen fascinated me. It was almost like a holy ritual for me to go watch movies with my grandpa. I still get very excited and even a bit emotional every time the lights turn off in the cinema even nowadays. Both of my parents are movie lovers, and one of my favorite childhood memories was watching films with them after they picked me up from school every Friday. Fast forward to high school, it came naturally to me that I would choose film as my major in college, but I wasn’t so sure what exactly I wanted to do in film. While I was doing my research on China’s colleges with film majors, one of my parent’s friends suggested that I should study film in the United States. Later I moved to LA and pursued my bachelor’s degree in Film and Television Production from Loyola Marymount University.

In film school, I got to learn directing, editing, cinematography, sound design….literally everything. I had so much fun absorbing every bit of it but I still didn’t know where my calling was until I got an opportunity to work with award-winning production designer Tim Yip. In 2015, I was privileged to work in his costume department as an assistant on Netflix’s Marco Polo S2 in Beijing. In his studio, I saw his past works in both production design and costume design which inspired me to dig into visual design of storytelling. His detail-oriented professionalism and oriental craftsmanship spirit in all his works are phenomenal. I learned so much from him and his amazing team about design. Coming back to school, I was determined to choose production design as my career path. Later to further my skills, I attended the American Film Institute Conservatory where I obtained my MFA degree. I am currently based in LA and Beijing working as a production designer in narrative and commercial. Earlier this year, I just finished my first feature film, Smoking Tigers (working title), which will premiere at Tribeca Film Festival this year.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I definitely had some struggling moments along the way. Right before I graduated, pandemic kicked in and I finished my graduate school on zoom. 2020 was absolutely a year full of anxiety and unpredictability. I was trying really hard to adapt to the new normal while seeking opportunities to launch my career. For a long period, there were very few productions here in LA. Towards the end of 2020, we finally finished the principal photography of my thesis film which has been postponed since March. My grandpa’s health has gone down since the beginning of the pandemic so I’ve made my decision to move back home for a bit at the beginning of 2021. Resettling in my hometown where I haven’t lived for the past decade and seeking job opportunities there was not easy, because I don’t have much connection here, but I managed to survive and thrive for the whole year I lived there. The narrative shorts I designed that year were distributed on major live-streaming platforms in China and got over 80 million of views. In mid-2022, after a whole year in post-production, my thesis film, Zenaida, was finally done, marking the end of my graduate school. So I moved back to LA and once again navigated to work as a production designer here. For sure it hasn’t been a smooth road for the past few years for me, but I got to travel, spend time with family, and work with so many super-talented fellow filmmakers in China and the US and learn from them. Still very grateful for this wonderful adventure.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a production designer. This title sounds a bit abstract compared to other film crews. Basically, a production designer works closely with the director and cinematographer to control the visual look of a project. If we remove the actor/actress in the frame, everything else there you see is pretty much a production designer’s job. From color palette to texture, hand props to sets of construction, production designer along with art, construction, property, set decoration departments creates the whole world of the film. I’m mostly designing indie narrative projects. Aside from design itself, production design for indie projects requires a lot of wisdom to work smartly and economically with very few crew and tight budgets. My problem-solving ability is always what I’m proud of. My experiences on various positions in college are still helping me to work creatively and collaboratively with my co-workers on all the projects nowadays. I understand what everyone in the team is doing and that helps me to do better jobs in my field too. I think that sets me apart from other designers.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I never thought I’d ever had bad luck in my life. Sometimes when something bad happens to me, I would treat it as a warning or a lesson – there are always some takeaways from it. I guess this view tells a bit more about my philosophy of life. Always look at the positive side of things and embrace everything without fear. When it comes to my work, luck, either good or bad, always plays a huge factor in the success of a project. There are so many things that could go perfectly right or awfully wrong during a production. Literally, no one could really have control over it. I believe every project has its own fate, and all I could do is to do what I can do the best to bring each of my designs into life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yimingpd.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yi.ming.z/?hl=en