A Phoenix was supposed to light the cauldron at the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony (pictures!)

Enjoyed the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony? So did I. In a recent interview with Zhang Yimou, a few alternate ideas for lighting the cauldron were disclosed… the most dramatic one involved using a Phoenix! The proposed Phoenix lighting sequence was illustrated in these sketches revealed during the interview:

A fiery Phoenix chases the final human torchbearer from behind

The Phoenix picks up the Olympic flame from the human torchbearer

Carrying the flame, it then turns around to fly to the Olympic cauldron

The fire bird soars up & around the cauldron, setting it ablaze!

Wow.

However the Phoenix plan was eventually changed due to technical difficulties. It was difficult to project a bright, fiery Phoenix image on the stadium wall - apparently to get the desired dramatic effect all the other lights in the stadium would need to be turned off!

Related posts/pages you might also like:
A hilarious poster in China - “The Ten Secrets of Women Call”
Touching love story from Chongqing, China
Olympics themed hair styles getting popular in Beijing!
Interactive map of Beijing tourist attractions

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Tags: Beijing, cauldron, lighting, olympics, phoenix, torch, yimou, zhang

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Beijing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.