Where Light
Meets Rebellion: A Film by RIOT for Tiffany & Co.

Client

Tiffany & Co.For Global Creative and the windows team

Film

Where Light Meets RebellionA 1:00 film in four ratios

Windows

Chengdu flagshipBirds, bamboo and a butterfly in glass

Shot

10 February 2025One morning at Tiffany & Co. in New York

Cameras

Three REDsV-RAPTOR XL, V-RAPTOR and KOMODO-X, plus stills

Delivered

28 February 202516:9 in 4K, 4:5, 1:1 and 9:16

There’s a stillness at the beginning of any great idea. And then, movement.

For the Tiffany & Co. flagship in Chengdu, that movement began with symbols: birds, bamboo, a butterfly. Elements drawn not from trend reports, but from the soul of local culture. Tiffany’s Global Creative team asked RIOT to film the people who drew them, Christopher Young, Vice President Creative Director, and Gloria Kim, Global Design Director, in the rooms in New York where the windows were designed.

Tiffany & Co.•Windows film•1:00•2025

Symbols first

“The most important part of creating windows is inspiration,” Christopher says, in the film’s first line. His begins in books and in glass: Tiffany lamps on the page, Tiffany glass catching the light on his windowsill, a sketchbook slowly filling with butterflies. “We took inspiration from symbols that were important locally to the Chengdu culture,” he says, eyes lit with conviction. Then he set those symbols against new technology, in his words “creating a display that will stop them in their tracks.”

Two hours with Christopher

The brief arrived in late January as behind-the-scenes coverage of the windows being built. A week before the shoot it became something better: portraits of the people who design them, filmed where they work. There was no time to scout, so Christopher sent photos of his office and we planned the light from those.

On Monday 10 February we were at the freight entrance when it opened at eight. We had Christopher for two hours, so both sets were lit before he sat down: his office first, with the Tiffany lamp and the yellow glass in the window, then the studio where the windows team works. Eleven people, three RED cameras, sound, hair and makeup, and a stills photographer, Adrian Nina, who doubled as another camera. Gloria followed Christopher in the studio, and by mid-afternoon we were packed out.

In the light of Tiffany windows

“I draw and paint in the light of Tiffany windows,” Christopher says. Our role was to step into that atmosphere, not to direct it, but to capture it. To observe how sketches become sculptures, how collaboration becomes craft, how windows become something much bigger.

From Gloria Kim’s hands-on shaping of dimensional design to the glow of Tiffany glass refracting studio light, we found beauty not in the finished product, but in the making. The unguarded moments. The charged pauses. The way creativity passes between people without words.

From sketch to glass

Gloria’s team takes the drawing from there. “We’re basically taking the concept from what Christopher has sketched,” she says, “taking the same idea and trying to dimensionalize that.” In the studio that means renders on a laptop, printed mockups on the long table, and a small sculpted figure holding up a disc of glass.

On paper

In glass

Designer, team, designer

The edit follows the window. Christopher designs it, hands it to Gloria’s team, and has the final word, so the film moves from him to the studio and back to him, ending on his line about rebellion. With Tiffany’s creative team we kept faces for the moments people speak and let hands, paper and glass carry the rest. The cut was approved in New York, then in China.

A quiet rebellion

The team at Tiffany brought the spirit.
We brought the lens.

Shot on location with reverence and precision, this film honors not just the visual spectacle of the windows themselves, but the ideas, risks, and people behind them. It’s a quiet rebellion. A nod to craft. A celebration of process. “There’s this rebellious spirit that I like bringing to Tiffany as well,” Christopher says at the close.

ServicesCreative Direction·Brand Storytelling·Film Production·Editorial Photography·Editing·Color Grading·Motion Graphics