Australian Richard Birch, who directed the highly praised opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and Yves Pepin, president of French company ECA2, will also be advisers.

During the campaign to find the production team for the ceremonies last year, 409 works were submitted to organizers, and five of them were short-listed after evaluation.

The directors and producers from the top five nominated presentations were commissioned by BOCOG to produce the events by combining the best elements and merits of the five.

At the same time BOCOG announced that it would continue its selection of famous artists and specialists from China and the rest of the world to participate in the creation of the opening and closing ceremonies.

"The opening ceremony is a crucial part of the Olympic Games. The success of a high-level Olympic Games with distinguishing features depends very much on the level of the opening ceremony," said Liu Qi, president of BOCOG.

"We expect to leave an excellent impression on the athletes and guests from all over the world and billions of TV audiences by staging a fantastic opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games."