City & Tourism
Moving from Gansu's landscapes and cultural heritage to the group's business, the film divides its resources, operations and vision for growth into clear chapters for partners.
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01 / Background
Made for partnership talks, the Gansu Culture & Tourism Group promo had to convey the group's overall strength, industry footprint, operations and vision for growth. Beyond showing Gansu's scenery, it had to help partners see how these resources connect to the group's businesses, projects and services.
The long film first introduces Gansu through its landscapes and cultural heritage, then covers the company's positioning, business portfolio and partnership scenarios, and finally returns to scenic sites, cultural performances and the vision for growth. The images needed Gansu's regional character while also letting viewers see which landscape corresponds to which of the group's projects and businesses.
02 / Creative Highlights
Once the natural landscape has established Gansu's character, Fuxi, the Eight Trigrams and the flying apsaras bring its cultural heritage into the frame. An apsara flies from the clouds into a grotto, gradually becomes a mural, and then the cave mouth reveals the exterior of the Mogao Caves. This single cultural element links figure, mural and architecture, so the shots before and after the transition tell the same story.
With several layers of business to cover in six minutes, the film opens each chapter with gold 3D titles embedded in landscape and city shots. The titles separate positioning, business and vision, so viewers can always tell which part they are in.
Business people, financial partnerships, hotels, scenic sites and operations follow one another, connecting the natural and cultural resources of the first part to specific businesses. After these shots, partners have a general picture of the group's projects and the services it can offer.
At the end, a camel caravan turns into a high-speed train, and an apsara mural appears side by side with a rocket launch. The caravan becoming a train links ancient trade with modern transport; the apsara and the rocket both soar upward, echoing each other across a thousand years and returning to the theme of “forces from all sides meeting in Gansu and heading out into the world.”
03 / Scene Breakdown
The clouds part to reveal the winding Yellow River, the snow-capped Qilian Mountains, the Zhangye Danxia landforms and the Gannan grasslands in turn; then the film moves through the Dadiwan Site, Fuxi Temple, Kongtong Mountain and the Mogao Caves to Jiayuguan Pass, where the title “Gansu: Let the World Follow the Sound” appears above the fortress.
The camera breaks through the clouds, light falls, and the winding Yellow River unfolds across the grassland, then the camera pushes toward the Qilian Mountains, their snow turned gold by the setting sun.
Above Dadiwan, swirling mist takes the form of Fuxi holding a glowing Eight Trigrams diagram; in the next moment the picture lands on an aerial view of Fuxi Temple.
A halo of light disperses over Kongtong Mountain, and an apsara holding a pipa flies through the clouds, enters a grotto and becomes a mural; the camera then pulls back out of the cave mouth to reveal the exterior of the Mogao Caves.
A beam of golden light sweeps across the desert and lands on the gate tower of Jiayuguan Pass, and the title “Gansu: Let the World Follow the Sound” appears.
The gold 3D words “Establishing Ourselves, Breaking New Ground” rise beside the Yellow River in Lanzhou. Scenes from across Gansu flash past, a location map links scattered scenic sites into a network, and a seed growing into a tree tells the story of the group from its founding to its growth. Shots involving business data were blurred in the public version.
A golden line lights up on a map of Gansu, linking scenic sites across the province, then turns into points of light that gather into an animation of the group's industry integration.
In cracked earth, a seed pushes aside the clods and sprouts two new leaves, matching the voiceover line “This is a plump, full seed.”
Red terrain textures spread out like roots, connect back to the seedling, and grow into an ancient tree with dense foliage.
A holographic pyramid and beams of light raise up the four business segments, finally landing on the title “Asset-Light and Asset-Heavy Together · Opening New Horizons” and the project locations.
The four businesses are covered one by one: technology and creative, investment and finance, development and construction, and operations and services. Digital culture is shown through holographic imagery, finance through the metaphor of streams of light nourishing the landscape, and development and operations through the group's real projects and visitor scenes.
A finger lights up a holographic interface in front of a grotto, the Buddha statue turns into glowing lines, and a person reaches out to touch an apsara, matching the line “The ends of the earth within arm's reach; pluck the stars at your fingertips.”
Ripples spread across Crescent Spring, the camera turns to the snowy mountains, and streams of light flow down the slopes, giving visible form to the idea that “finance is like water.”
Shifting light and shadow disperse onto an aerial view of the Lanzhou Shiguangli Art & Eco Resort Corridor, with the project name labeled in the lower left.
A family walks on the grassland, someone strokes a cat basking in the sun, a traveler accepts a bunch of wildflowers, and finally a village at sunset: the human warmth in operations and services.
After the chapter title, the group's projects appear one after another: ancient architecture at night, the Yellow River in Lanzhou, Shiguangli, Pingshan Lake, the source of the Wei River, Lanzhou Hotel, the Olympic Sports Center Hotel, glacier water and the Ejina poplar forest, each labeled with its location.
The large gold words “Gathering Momentum, Opening New Chapters” stand above an ancient riverside town, then the film cuts to brightly lit ancient buildings at night.
Night traffic in front of Lanzhou Hotel is followed by the ring of lights at the Olympic Sports Center Hotel and the Ruyi hotel series.
A bottle of glacier water stands before a snowy glacier, followed by the golden poplar forest of Ejina with a small train passing through, and a woman in red leaning on a poplar, mirrored in the water.
This chapter is about vision: terraced mountain homes, partnership handshakes, a “15th Five-Year Plan” scroll and galloping horses, closing with the “Ready to Be the Engine” and “Ready to Be the Soil” animations. Finally, past-and-present pairings, a camel caravan becoming a high-speed train and an apsara set against a rocket, lead to a map of Gansu, the Earth and the group's logo.
An ice-blue scroll unrolls and gold characters for the “15th Five-Year Plan” rise up, then the film cuts to a herd of horses galloping through water.
Rings of light spin like an engine, pushing light outward; then a holographic tree of light grows from its roots, matching “Ready to Be the Soil.”
A camel caravan passes the fortress, and the picture becomes a high-speed train speeding across the grassland, followed by a split screen pairing a Dunhuang apsara with a rocket launch.
Golden rays shoot outward from a map of Gansu, the camera pulls back to the whole Earth, and points of light connect places around the world, returning to “Let the World Follow the Sound.”
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
In the order of the final film: approved stills we generated with AI and used in the film. Live-action footage and data graphics are not included.
Shot 1.1
The first big vista after the clouds part: the Yellow River winds through several bends on the grassland as the setting sun shines from behind distant mountains.
Shot 1.2
The camera pushes forward from behind the mountains, the snowy peaks turned gold by the setting sun as clouds roll around their slopes.
Shot 1.3
The colorful ridges of Danxia and cattle and sheep on the grassland, in a tone consistent with the previous two shots, without looking washed out.
Shot 1.4
An aerial view of the thatched houses of an ancient settlement, matching the line “eight thousand years of unbroken cultural heritage.”
Shot 1.5
Mist swirls as Fuxi raises a glowing Eight Trigrams diagram in a sea of clouds; the mist bridges the move from Dadiwan to Fuxi Temple.
Shot 1.6
First an aerial view of the whole temple complex, then a push toward the gate and incense table, so viewers recognize it as a real site they can visit.
Shot 1.7
Kongtong Mountain in the mist, with an Eight Trigrams halo lighting up over the Taoist temple at the summit; the halo leads into the next shot.
Shot 1.8
An apsara holding a pipa flies through the clouds, enters a grotto and becomes a mural, and then the exterior of the Mogao Caves is seen from the cave mouth.
Shot 1.9
A beam of golden light sweeps across the desert and lands on Jiayuguan Pass, where the title appears.
Shot 2.1
Scenic sites across Gansu are linked on a map, matching the line “gathering scattered verses, stringing together scattered pearls.”
Shot 2.2
Four holographic platforms revolve around “Gansu Culture & Tourism,” showing how culture and tourism are integrated.
Shot 2.3
A seed breaks through the soil, the seedling reaches for the light, and an ancient tree spreads its shade, a metaphor for the group's growth since its founding.
Shot 2.4
Asset-light and asset-heavy businesses are contrasted side by side, and a pyramid structure raises the four segments before landing on the project locations.
Shot 3.1
A fingertip lights up a holographic interface in front of a grotto, the Buddha statue turns into glowing lines, and a person reaches out to touch an apsara.
Shot 3.2
A low-angle shot of a glass-walled tower, light bursting from its roof, introduces the investment and finance segment.
Shot 3.3
Streams of light flow down the snowy mountains and spread over the grassland, a metaphor for capital nourishing scenic sites and landscapes across the province.
Shot 3.4
A family strolling on the grassland and a cat sunning itself on stone steps: the human warmth in operations and services.
Shot 3.5
A village at sunset, a guesthouse courtyard with the lights on, and someone at a window watching the evening glow, matching the line “Lying back to watch idle clouds drift home, with long, unhurried years ahead.”
Shot 4.1
The group's bottled water set in a glacial stream, with snowy mountains behind.
Shot 4.2
A small train passes through a golden poplar forest, and a woman in red leans on a poplar, mirrored in the water.
Shot 5.1
Terraced fields and a village in a valley at sunrise, matching the line “This is an era of culture and tourism in which the land grows warm.”
Shot 5.2
An ice-blue scroll unrolls, with gold characters for the “15th Five-Year Plan” standing above Gansu landmarks.
Shot 5.3
Rings of light spin like an engine, pushing light out to each of the group's businesses.
Shot 5.4
A holographic tree grows from its roots, business icons hanging from its branches, matching “Ready to Be the Soil.”
Shot 5.5
A camel caravan and a high-speed train, an apsara mural and a rocket: split screens contrast Gansu two thousand years apart.
Shot 5.6
Points of light on a map of Gansu link into a network, then the camera pulls back to the whole Earth.
05 / Results
We completed a 6 min 02 sec promo film in 16:9, mastered at 3840×2160, designed for partnership talks and covering Gansu's landscapes, cultural heritage and the group's businesses across four chapters. The group's business data has been removed from the public showcase version.
Case Study
A promo film for partners has to make two things clear.
First: Gansu is worth visiting. The Yellow River, snowy mountains, Danxia landforms and grottoes have to be filmed so people want to go see them.
Second: this group is worth partnering with. Technology, finance, development and operations have to be explained so they are clear at a glance.
“Gansu: Let the World Follow the Sound,” which we made for Gansu Culture & Tourism Group, joins these two things into one story across 6 minutes and four chapters.
01
Gansu Culture & Tourism Group gave us a complete narration script and storyboard. The film would be used in talks with partners, showing the group's strength, industry footprint, operating results and plans for the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
The style requirements were clear too: grand, high-quality, with a sense of technology; 16:9 landscape, 4K, 6 to 8 minutes long.
The challenge was that the first half of the narration covered landscapes and heritage, while the second half covered business and data. If the first part were just a scenic film and the second just a slide deck, partners would feel they were watching two films stitched together.
So we settled on an approach: open with a continuous run of grand vistas that carries viewers into Gansu, and when covering the business later, let the images do the talking as much as possible instead of relying on text and charts alone.
The clouds part, the winding Yellow River unfolds, and the camera pushes toward the golden Qilian Mountains.
02
For the opening vistas, we didn't generate video directly. Instead we first made the Yellow River, the Qilian Mountains, Zhangye Danxia and the Gannan grasslands into stills, one by one.
Each image was first given a consistent tonal look: not washed out, like a real photograph; then upscaled to 4K with added detail. Only once the images were final did we use adjacent pairs as first and last frames to generate the motion in between.
For camera movement we used an aerial fly-through perspective: pushing forward from behind the snowy mountains, or skimming along a ridgeline, to link two shots into one.
The sites had to be recognizable. For places like Fuxi Temple, Kongtong Mountain and the Mogao Caves, we generated images using real photographs as reference: however beautiful the picture, people who have been there must recognize it at a glance.
03
In under a minute, the opening has to pass through five places: the Dadiwan Site, Fuxi Temple, Kongtong Mountain, the Mogao Caves and Jiayuguan Pass. How the shots connect is the key to this section.
We used four methods: matching similar elements, such as a flying apsara cutting to an apsara in a mural; camera fly-throughs;alternating wide shots and close-ups;and letting mist and light lead the way, such as Fuxi emerging from mist, and a beam of light sweeping from the Mogao Caves to Jiayuguan Pass.
For the Fuxi Temple section, we first planned a transition using grains of sand, but the client preferred the feel of mist, so we changed it to mist swirling into Fuxi's form, which also made the image cleaner.
An apsara flies through the clouds, enters a grotto and becomes a mural, and then the exterior of the Mogao Caves is seen from the cave mouth.
As a result, viewers don't see a slideshow of five sites, but one cultural story moving forward.
04
Chapter Two covers the group's four businesses: technology and creative, investment and finance, development and construction, and operations and services. This is the part most likely to become a dry introduction.
We found a concrete image for each business. For the group's founding, it is a seed breaking through the soil and growing into a tree; for digital culture, a finger lighting up a holographic interface in front of a grotto as a person reaches out to touch an apsara; for finance, streams of light flowing down the snowy mountains, matching the line “finance is like water.”
A holographic interface, a glowing Buddha statue and an apsara, matching the line “The ends of the earth within arm's reach; pluck the stars at your fingertips.”
The relationship between asset-light and asset-heavy businesses and the four segments is explained with 3D animation; development and operations are shown through the group's real projects and visitor footage, with each project's name labeled in the lower left.
05
After the first cut was delivered, the client held a group review session. We made a round of revisions based on the feedback, with several clear changes:
The title gets a proper entrance.“Gansu: Let the World Follow the Sound” appears at the end of the opening, above Jiayuguan Pass.
Chapter titles become gold 3D lettering.“Establishing Ourselves, Breaking New Ground,” “Deep Roots,” “Gathering Momentum, Opening New Chapters” and “Persistence Pays Off” rise from river bends and cityscapes, with breathing room between chapters.
The pacing varies.Shots are no longer all three to five seconds each: the grand vistas slow down, and the projects are cut quickly.
Live-action and AI imagery hold together.The live-action footage was uniformly brightened and graded to match the color of the AI imagery, and each of the group's projects is labeled with its location when it appears.
Past and present become a split screen.The client loved the idea of a camel caravan turning into a high-speed train and wanted a stronger contrast. We turned it into a split screen: after the caravan passes the fortress, it cuts to a high-speed train, then a Dunhuang apsara and a rocket launch appear side by side.
A caravan cuts to a high-speed train, and an apsara mural and a rocket share a split screen.
The group's logo at the end also emerges from the light animation of the map and the Earth before it.
06
The biggest risk with a 6-minute film is viewers drifting off halfway through.
In this film, AI imagery links motifs such as myths, murals and landscapes; live-action footage shows the group's real projects; and 3D animation and chapter titles make the structure clear. With a clear division of labor among the three, the long film holds attention.
For culture and tourism groups and government and corporate clients, this means one film can say two things at once: how beautiful this place is, and what this organization can do.
For us, it was also a complete exercise in making a long 4K film: lock the stills first, then add motion, and finally revise shot by shot based on review feedback, with every step showing up in the images of the final film.
FAQ
Yes. This film was mastered at 3840×2160. We first brought every still up to 4K with added detail, and the video was generated in native 4K with Kling AI; motion and prompts were tested at 1080p first, then run in 4K once confirmed.
There will be color differences, so they need dedicated treatment. In this film the live-action footage was uniformly brightened and graded to match the AI imagery's color; in terms of roles, AI handles motifs and transitions, while the group's real projects use live-action footage, labeled with locations in the lower left of the frame.
The film is divided into four chapters following the narration, each opening with gold 3D titles and with breathing room between chapters; the business segments are explained through concrete images such as a seed, streams of light and a holographic tree, with more complex relationships handed to 3D animation.
We received the narration script and storyboard in late April and completed the final cut in mid-May, with one round of revisions based on the client's group review in between.
Approach
In production, we first generated stills of the key landscapes, then used first and last frames to control how shots connect, through camera fly-throughs, transitions between similar elements, changes of shot size, and transitions through mist and light. The Fuxi Temple section transitions through swirling mist; the apsara section moves step by step from a figure in the clouds to a grotto mural to the exterior of the buildings, with the effects always centered on specific cultural sites.
When choosing footage, we checked whether the images matched the business: the film adds live-action footage of municipal construction, visitor experiences and hotels, and project names, product packaging and location captions were checked one by one so the images explain the business accurately. AI imagery handles the transitions between motifs, live-action footage shows specific projects and daily life, and chapter text and infographics make the structure clear.
The long film divides its chapters with gold titles set in landscapes and cityscapes, then carries the content forward with maps, structural animations, partners and operations scenes. At the end, the caravan turning into a high-speed train and the apsara-and-rocket split screen turn the abstract idea of “past and present meeting” into something you can see.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
