Taipei Film Festival honors last movie billboard painter

台北電影節表彰最後一位電影廣告看板畫家

Yan Jhen-Fa battles failing eyesight to paint movie billboards


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei Film Festival presented this year’s Outstanding Contribution Award to movie billboard painter, Yan Jhen-fa (顏振發), per a press release on Tuesday (April 9).

Yan has toiled in the local cinema industry for more than 50 years, hand-painting thousands of movie billboards, many of which are of his own devising. In the 1970s, hundreds of cinemas across Taiwan employed their own movie billboard painter, though this tradition is long past as Yan is the last artisan in this field, working for Tainan’s Chin Men Theater.

Yan was 18 years old when he began his apprenticeship with a celebrated film poster painter, Chen Feng-yong (陳峰永). It was here that he learned the “grid method" for large canvases, a primitive way for enlarging and converting images to billboard size.

Yan said the more complex the image, the more grid lines are needed. He begins each new poster with the eyes and facial features, as this is the most difficult part of each new poster.

In his early days as an apprentice, Yan said he would earn just NT$200 (US$6) a month as an apprentice. He said it took him more than three years of training before he could become proficient.

Yan said two years of working on his own were enough to earn him recognition in the local film industry. After he became noticed by cinema owners, he was painting 200 billboards a month.

Yan will turn 71 next month and damaged the retina in his right eye due to excessive use, leading to blindness. Yan was fortunate that the laser treatments in his left eye left him with some degree of peripheral vision.

Yan is not only popular with cinema fans but also won over music lovers as he reproduced an image on the cover of Coldplay’s album “Everyday Life” on a public wall in Taipei’s Ximenting area. This artwork drew lots of fans eager to snap selfies, with many remarking about the realism of his work.

Each day he continues to work outside a movie theater in Tainan, where he can be seen with his buckets of paint and several stools he sits upon. Though he has never appeared in a movie, he is happy with the recognition he has been given and is proud to be associated in some small way with film production.

As the last working professional in this bygone industry, Yan still has vivid memories of the faces of well-known actors and exciting cinematic scenes. He also pledges to continue with his work, saying, "I will continue to paint until my eyes can no longer see."