Spaces & Events
Shu embroidery ties together Chengdu's intangible heritage, the Lantern Festival light show and visions of the future, telling a Lantern Festival story on the Twin Towers that anyone can grasp at a glance.
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01 / Background
The Lantern Festival event at the Tianfu Twin Towers needed an opening film that conveyed intangible cultural heritage, Chengdu and family reunion all at once, to be shown at the event and looped after the holiday. It would play on the city's building screens: audiences watch from far away, and the tower façades have angled corners and face different directions, so the center of an ordinary landscape frame is not the clearest spot on site.
The film is organized into four chapters: Splendor Welcomes Spring, Joyful Lantern Fair, Tech Lantern Festival, and Reunion and Peace. Shu embroidery texture runs throughout, with pandas, koi, the dragon and phoenix, and tech imagery each carrying a theme. Production had to answer two questions at once: what to say, and whether these figures could be seen in full once they were on the towers.
02 / Creative Highlights
A big screen doesn't mean every part of it is easy to see. The composition places the main figures on the face of each tower that directly faces the audience, with chapter title cards mirrored left and right. Pandas and lanterns sit in clearly defined positions, so viewers a whole building away can still recognize the characters and read the greetings.
Koi, landscapes, the dragon and phoenix, and galloping horses look very different, and placed back to back they could easily become unrelated decoration. Embroidery thread, woven textures and auspicious clouds appear throughout the film, while red-and-gold and blue-green palettes set the sections apart, so however the theme changes, it still feels like the same Lantern Festival.
The tech content had to connect with the traditional themes. The astronaut, planets and lanterns that follow the dragon and phoenix carry over the earlier points of light and the upward-opening space before the film returns to the blessings chapter. Following the same rhythm, viewers naturally grasp the shift from tradition to the future.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The film opens with the chapter title, then bursts of golden thread explode and spin across the two towers, weaving a mirrored Shu embroidery kaleidoscope.
“Heritage Weaves · Splendor Welcomes Spring” in two vertical columns on a red ground, one on each tower, framed by small lanterns.
On a black ground, gold and red points of light burst from the center, stretch into threads, then curl into mirrored swirls.
Blue-green and red embroidered ribbons swirl in, white plum blossoms open on the branches, and two lanterns light up at the center of the swirl.
The patterns unfold layer by layer, finally settling on two mirrored red lotuses, each with a lantern hanging at its heart.
Chapter Two begins with the koi: a beam of golden light cuts through a blue-green landscape, and a golden koi swims out of the glow, leaping upward.
On the “Pandas & Koi · Joyful Lantern Fair” title card, pandas and small lanterns hide among the brushstrokes.
A beam of golden light surges up from the foot of the mountains, trailing streams of light and petals that fill both towers.
The glow gathers into a golden koi that turns over above a ripple-like ring of light.
The koi swims upward trailing a long red tail fin, every stitch visible in its scales.
The koi leaps to the top, becomes a pillar of light and scatters into golden specks across the sky, leading into the next segment.
The pandas arrive: walking out from behind the mountains, riding a koi, sitting on the eaves and lying in a sea of flowers, they take in Chengdu's Lantern Festival fair.
On each tower, a panda walks out from behind blue-green mountains carrying a fish lantern and stands on auspicious clouds.
A panda rides on the back of a giant koi, holding up a small fish lantern as it swims from left to right across the landscape.
Against an off-white ground, two pandas sit on glazed-tile eaves looking left and right, with lanterns hanging from bamboo branches.
Lanterns hang all along the eaves, and several pandas lie among embroidered flowers covering the ground, in a mirrored composition.
Chapter Three brings out the dragon and the phoenix: one rises from the waves, the other forms from starlight, and at last they face each other across a golden ground.
The eight characters of “Dragon & Phoenix Herald Spring · Tech Lantern Festival” are encircled by golden dragons, one column on each tower.
Dark green waves churn, and a red-and-gold dragon lifts its head out of them.
A point of starlight falls and gathers into a glowing phoenix, its feathers looking as if embroidered in gold thread.
On an orange-yellow ground, the dragon on the left tower and the phoenix on the right each fill the front of their tower, facing each other.
Traditional imagery meets technology: a rocket lifts off from an embroidered landscape, an astronaut chases lanterns among the stars, and two humanoid robots appear holding banners reading “Celebrate the Lantern Festival.”
A rocket stands among blue-green mountains; after ignition, its exhaust turns into golden threads as it surges upward.
An astronaut floats above Earth, surrounded by red lanterns marked “Lantern Festival,” with the moon in the distance.
The astronaut reaches out and flies toward the full moon as a large red lantern lights up in front of them.
Two humanoid robots, one white and one black, their bodies embroidered with patterns, each hold a red banner reading “Celebrate the Lantern Festival” as they stand among golden auspicious clouds.
A Year of the Horse finale: colorful embroidered horses gallop from left to right across both towers, and finally a panda and a robot each carry a lantern, delivering wishes for reunion.
The “Ten Thousand Galloping Horses · Reunion and Peace” title card, with little horses running between the strokes.
Led by a white horse, a colorful herd bursts out of the black ground and gallops into the frame from left to right.
The background turns bright red as the herd races over auspicious clouds and green mountains, the embroidery texture growing ever clearer.
On the left tower, a panda rides a koi carrying a lantern; on the right, a robot holds a horse lantern, with a golden dragon and phoenix coiled behind them.
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
Arranged in the order of the finished film: each shot starts with what it shows, followed by the final frame used in the film (1450×2100 for a single tower, 2900×2100 for the full twin-tower screen).
Shot 1.1
On a black ground, gold and red threads burst from the center and twist into a swirl, as if embroidery thread were pulled taut in an instant.
Shot 1.2
The swirl turns into a red ground with blue-green embroidered ribbons, a lantern lights up at the center, and it then unfolds into a lotus pattern on a blue-green ground.
Shot 1.3
The camera pushes into the heart of the lotus, the patterns letting light through layer by layer like colored glass.
Shot 2.1
In the red sky over a blue-green landscape, a beam of golden light surges up swirling with petals, paving the way for the koi's entrance.
Shot 2.2
The koi leaps to the top and becomes golden points of light across the sky, falling like lantern tassels.
Shot 3.1
The pandas slowly walk out from behind the mountains and stand on auspicious clouds, one on each tower.
Shot 3.2
The pandas stop and gently sway the koi lanterns in their hands.
Shot 3.3
A giant koi swims out from the lower left, with a panda sitting on its back holding up a small fish lantern.
Shot 3.4
Against an off-white wall, a panda sits on glazed-tile eaves, with bamboo shadows and lanterns nearby.
Shot 3.5
Lanterns hang all along the eaves, and the pandas lie down among embroidered flowers covering the ground.
Shot 4.1
In dark green waves, a red-and-gold dragon lifts its head.
Shot 4.2
Starlight gathers into a phoenix, mirrored left and right so it can be seen on both towers.
Shot 4.3
On an orange-yellow ground, the dragon and the phoenix each take one tower, facing each other.
Shot 5.1
A rocket stands among blue-green mountains, its exhaust and the background both rendered in gold and red embroidery-thread texture.
Shot 5.2
An astronaut floats above Earth beside red lanterns marked “Lantern Festival” and a full moon.
Shot 5.3
Two humanoid robots of different models, their bodies embroidered with patterns, hold red banners reading “Celebrate the Lantern Festival.”
Shot 6.1
On a black ground, a white horse trailing streams of light gallops into the frame from the left.
Shot 6.2
Colorful embroidered horses burst out in a herd as the background shifts from black-red to bright red.
Shot 6.3
Eight embroidered horses gallop to the right through auspicious clouds and green mountains, led by a white horse.
Shot 6.4
Two single-tower images combined into the full twin-tower screen: on the left, a panda rides a koi carrying a lantern; on the right, a robot holds a horse lantern, with a golden dragon and phoenix behind them.
05 / Results
Delivered a 3-minute Lantern Festival opening film for the twin towers (full twin-tower screen 2900×2100), plus a version composited onto live-action footage of the towers, for screening at the Lantern Festival event and looped playback afterward. After it aired, the Tianfu Twin Towers placed a new video order.
Case Study
On the night of the Lantern Festival, the Tianfu Twin Towers on Chengdu's Jiaozi Avenue were set to light up.
The exterior walls of the two towers form one continuous LED screen, covering about 52,000 square meters.
We were to make an opening film for the Lantern Festival event: it needed intangible heritage, Chengdu, the reunion spirit of the Lantern Festival and a touch of technology.
What we delivered was a 3-minute Lantern Festival opening film in four chapters, with Shu embroidery texture throughout.
01
The client's requirements were clear: an intangible-heritage, Lantern Festival theme, a runtime in multiples of 15 seconds, a resolution of 2900×2100, with the left and right towers each taking half.
The hard part was “where it's watched from.” Viewers look up at the towers from the street, far away, and the tower surfaces curve. A storyline that only makes sense if watched from start to finish would easily get lost up there.
So instead of a continuous storyline, we split the film into four chapters: Heritage Weaves · Splendor Welcomes Spring, Koi & Pandas · Joyful Lantern Fair, Dragon & Phoenix Herald Spring · Tech Lantern Festival, and Ten Thousand Galloping Horses · Reunion and Peace.
Each chapter opens with a vertical title card that sets the theme, one column per tower; after that, every scene is built around an instantly recognizable image: koi, pandas, the dragon and phoenix, a rocket, galloping horses. Scenes are linked mostly by points of light and golden threads rather than complex transitions, so anyone passing by can look up at any moment and understand.
Vertical text in one column on each tower, gold on red, so viewers can tell at a glance what each chapter is about.
02
Koi and robots, pandas and rockets: the subject matter ranges widely. If each segment were drawn in its own style, three minutes would become a string of unrelated stickers.
We gave the whole film one shared material: Shu embroidery. The landscapes, auspicious clouds, koi scales and panda fur were all drawn as silk threads and stitches; the tech chapter too, with the rocket's exhaust in golden thread and the robots covered in embroidered patterns.
For color, the client wanted red as the main tone with stronger contrast. We switched the closing chapter back to a red-and-gold palette and used blue-green only as an accent in the landscapes, so the whole film always reads as the same Lantern Festival.
03
The towers are curved, so a horizontal image wrapped around them turns its sides toward the back, out of the audience's view. However big the screen, only a strip in the middle actually faces the street.
Within the 2900×2100 frame, we marked out two layers of areas: the main subjects go into two vertical bands at 580–1160 and 1740–2320 pixels, and the most important characters sit further in at 725–1015 and 1885–2175. Each final frame was first previewed in a photo of the actual twin towers before deciding how large to make it and where to place it.
This is how the galloping horses were revised: in their original position, the herd landed right on the back of the towers once wrapped. We changed it so the herd gallops in from left to right, letting viewers see the whole herd pass no matter which side they stand on. The astronaut and the moon were also moved one by one to the front of the towers, and the lanterns made smaller, so the main subjects stay complete.
Images bend as they wrap around the towers, so we also checked each one to make sure the curve wouldn't create any shapes that could be misread.
04
The client wanted the film to include artificial intelligence and technology. Rather than introduce a separate blue tech style, we let technology grow out of the festival imagery.
A rocket lifts off from an embroidered landscape, its exhaust in golden thread; an astronaut floats above Earth, reaching for red lanterns marked “Lantern Festival”; two humanoid robots, one white and one black, their bodies embroidered with patterns, hold banners reading “Celebrate the Lantern Festival.”
An astronaut floats among the stars, surrounded by lanterns marked “Lantern Festival.”
The client also wanted a faster pace. We sped up some of the long generated shots and added more content to the tech chapter, making the visuals tighter on the towers.
05
The project delivered a 3-minute Lantern Festival opening film for the twin towers, plus a version composited onto live-action footage of the towers, for screening at the Lantern Festival event and looped playback afterward.
After it aired, the Tianfu Twin Towers placed a new video order.
For us, the most useful lesson from this project was:For a landmark screen, first work out what the audience can see, then decide what to draw.Subject areas, core areas and on-tower previews of every frame: this approach can be applied directly to other city landmark screens and irregularly shaped screens.
A panda and a robot each carry a lantern, one on each tower, delivering the final wishes.
FAQ
In this project, we first marked out a subject area and a core area based on the curve of the towers (within the full 2900×2100 twin-tower screen, the main subjects sit in two vertical bands at 580–1160 and 1740–2320 pixels). Every final frame was previewed in a photo of the actual twin towers, and only once we confirmed the characters landed fully on the front of the towers did we animate it.
The whole film uses Shu embroidery texture: landscapes, koi, pandas, the dragon and phoenix, even the rocket's exhaust and the robots' shells, are all drawn as silk threads and stitches, and a red-and-gold palette runs through all four chapters.
We received the brief in early February 2026 and first made a 15-second test film to settle the visual style. All shots were finalized by late February, and the full 3-minute version was delivered in early March, about one month in total.
We delivered the full version for the 2900×2100 twin-tower screen and separate versions of each chapter (1450×2100 per tower), plus a version composited onto live-action footage of the towers for online sharing.
Approach
Every final frame was first placed into a photo of the actual twin towers for a test view. We then marked a subject area and a core-element area across the whole frame so that the characters and greetings would land on the side of each tower facing the audience. Composition, outpainting and motion were all adjusted around these areas, and each revision was previewed on the towers again. The focus of each frame isn't placed at the center of a computer screen, but where viewers standing in front of the buildings can actually see it clearly.
When refining the motion, transitions into the tech chapter had to feel natural, and all chapter text was unified into one style. Embroidery patterns, auspicious clouds and points of light link the sections throughout, and character movements keep clear silhouettes and defined positions, so even as traditional figures enter the astronaut and planet scenes, they stay tied to the Lantern Festival theme.
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