Hyphens Haven

Yolande Thame - Film Set Designer

Dréa Lewis Season 1 Episode 8

Yolande Thame has been a Set Designer in the US film industry for several years and is currently based out of Atlanta, Georgia. She also works on location in different cities across the US, wherever the most interesting productions take her. If asked, Ms. Thame would describe herself as an architect for television and feature films, bringing obscure ideas and fantastical art concepts to reality so that construction teams can build environments for the actors to bring to life. Her digital modeling tools include Autodesk Revit, McNeel Rhinocerous3D, Unreal Engine, and Blender3D, among others. She has the skill to take abstract scratches on a napkin and turn them into realistic spaces (with all the correct building proportions) that ultimately support the cast and crew to operate safely and tell a story effectively.

Miss Thame has worked on a wide range of projects from tent-pole features for Marvel like Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and WB's upcoming Latin American superhero, Blue Beetle, indie films such as Universal's Please Don't Destroy, New Line Cinema's TAG, and FilmNation's McDonald's-origin bio-drama, The Founder, streaming products for Netflix like Hillbilly Elegy and True Memoirs of An International Assassin, culturally relevant mini-series like 20th Century FOX's Genius: Aretha, to episodic series like CW's Dynasty, BET's Being Mary Jane, AMC's Hap & Leonard and OWN's beloved mega-church drama, Greenleaf. Presently, she is working on an undisclosed adventure series in Dallas, Texas.

Ms. Thame pivoted to this industry after years as a project manager for boutique construction firms and a marketing manager with the wood division of Herman Miller, a corporate furniture design company. After being passed over for promotions and finally laid off during the 2008 financial market crash, she decided to retrain and pursue her true passion, storytelling on the big screen. Ms. Thame, already endowed with qualifications from Georgia Institute of Technology, one Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design and the other in Industrial Engineering, returned to school for a Masters of Arts in Production Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) at their headquarters in Savanah, Georgia.

The next phase of her career resides in combing the lessons from her parents and teaching these skillsets of designing environments to other people worldwide, especially girls like herself who know nothing about using these tools or have access to them. Ms. Thame plans on one day telling her own stories, which include more people like her parents because, as she says, "no matter how small we think we are, our stories are worth telling too!” 

website: www.ythame.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ythame/



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