Culture & ArtAI Visual Support
Based on the stories behind each idiom and the needs of the program's shoot, we provided AI short films, live-action composite shots and virtual backgrounds for “Exploring China Through Idioms.”
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01 / Background
“Exploring China Through Idioms” needed to turn classical allusions into on-screen visuals. Our support took three forms—fully AI-animated shorts, AI blended with live action, and large-screen virtual backdrops for filming—each with its own job: telling the story clearly, filling in scenes that are hard to shoot, and setting the stage for live performance.
The relationships, magical transformations and time spans in each allusion had to be told with clear cause and effect in a short film, while backdrops for live shooting had to work with the actors, camera positions and lighting. This page uses the program's “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World” segment to show how an AI short tells a story; other allusions have their own pages.
02 / Creative Highlights
“Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World” opens with a street market and an herbal shop to establish everyday life, shows the old man taking a patient's pulse, then cuts to Fei Changfang watching from upstairs. Before anything magical happens, the audience already knows who everyone is and what they're doing, which motivates the later visit and the entry into the gourd, and lets the story return to its theme of healing.
The gourd by the door recurs throughout, serving both as a story prop and as a landmark that keeps viewers oriented. As the characters walk toward a golden ring, the gourd sits at the center of the frame, golden light floods the screen, and the film cuts to a palace in the clouds, transforming the shop step by step into a fairyland. The real world and the immortal realm are told apart by the color and movement of light.
After the flight on bamboo, the film cuts from the small tree beside the shop straight to a tree with lush, spreading branches, using the same tree to show that while he was gone for ten days, ten years passed in the human world. It then returns to pulse-taking and patients waiting in the courtyard: the immortal arts he learned are ultimately used to heal.
The on-set backdrops were made separately for dawn, noon and dusk, with doors, windows, eaves, floors and light sources checked item by item. In the courtyard, for example, only the curtains and trees sway gently, and the extended street views match the tone and brightness of the same scene. Backdrop motion had to support the actors' performance and the program's camera positions, never upstage them.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The studio first displays the rules of the scenario question, then cuts to the AI short: a high view over the market in Runan Commandery that settles on the gourd at the door of an herbal shop.
The program first puts the rules on screen: contestants watch the short, then answer. The minute or so that follows is the story they need to understand.
An aerial shot of the city gate, rooftops and crowds, then a cut to the shop door, where a yellow gourd hangs under the eaves. Place, era and the key prop are established in one go.
The old man takes pulses by day and vanishes as soon as the sun sets; upstairs, Fei Changfang sees it all.
In backlight, the white-bearded old man takes a patient's pulse. Before anything magical happens, viewers first meet an ordinary healer.
The camera moves from the city at sunset to silhouetted eaves and a passing flock of birds, using the changing sky to show nightfall.
From behind Fei Changfang, the camera looks out over the market as the narration introduces him as the market official, bringing the story's second lead on stage.
The old man walks into a golden ring of light and disappears; curious, Fei Changfang pays him a visit, and the two pass through the ring together into a fairyland in the clouds.
With his back to the camera, the old man walks toward the golden ring of light at the shop door; the light grows brighter and he vanishes into it. “Jumping into the gourd” becomes an action viewers can follow.
Fei Changfang looks back from upstairs; at the shop door at night, the gourd hangs glowing in midair. The small tree by the door also appears here, setting up the “ten years” to come.
Fei Changfang stands at the shop door with a gourd at his waist; inside, the old man looks up and smiles, and the secret is about to be revealed.
The two step into the golden ring with their backs to the camera as mist rolls over their feet; then golden light bursts across the frame, and reality gives way to fairyland.
The two walk through golden mist and mountain forest as the image shifts from the shop's warm yellow to the fairyland's thin haze, so viewers know at once they've entered another world.
The immortal gives Fei Changfang a bamboo stalk and he flies on it; the small tree by the shop grows into a big tree to show ten years have passed; finally he sits at a table treating patients, and the studio poses the question.
The two sit facing each other at a low table in the mist; then the old man, his back to the golden ring, says his sentence is served and he will return to the heavens.
A green bamboo stalk rises in golden light, then Fei Changfang stands on it and sweeps forward over a sea of clouds and palaces among the mountains.
The small tree by the shop door cuts to a big leafy tree, with the camera looking up at its thick trunk. Same place, and the contrast between ten days and ten years is clear at a glance.
Fei Changfang sits at a table treating an elderly patient, with people lined up behind him; the courtyard under the big tree is packed with patients, bringing the story back to “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World.”
04 / Gallery
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
We delivered nine AI idiom story films for the program, plus live-action LED-wall backdrops for ten allusions, including “Yue Fei's Mother Tattoos His Back,” “Bearing Thorns to Beg Forgiveness” and “Reconciliation of the General and the Minister.” The program aired on CCTV-1, with 200M+ views across platforms and a single-episode high of 60M+. This page features “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World”; the other eight films each have their own page below.
CCTV Science & Education's program description lists “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World”, “Dong Feng Revives Shi Xie” and “The Tiger Guards the Apricot Grove” as fully AI-generated virtual dramas; the featured piece on this page uses the broadcast footage.
Case Study
Every evening, an old man vanished into the gourd at the door of his herbal shop.
A giant chased the sun and drank the Yellow River dry, then the Wei River too.
A little bird carried pebbles in its beak, flying to the East Sea trip after trip.
These allusions had to become one- to two-minute shorts on the stage of CCTV's “Exploring China Through Idioms”: contestants watch a short, then name the matching idiom. We made nine AI idiom story films for the program, plus LED-wall backdrops for ten allusions in the live-action segments. After broadcast, the program reached 200M+ views across platforms, with a single-episode high of 60M+.
01
“Exploring China Through Idioms” is a six-episode seasonal cultural program co-hosted by China Media Group, the Ministry of Education and the National Language Commission. One type of question on the show is the “scenario question”: a short film plays first, and contestants answer after watching it.
Each short stands on its own. In one or two minutes, it has to tell an entire allusion: who the hero is, where it happens, what magical thing occurs, and which idiom it lands on.
Viewers don't have the original text in hand; they can only follow the story through the visuals.
The program first displays the rules of the scenario question, then plays the AI short “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World.”
We made three kinds of visuals for the program: pure AI idiom story films; AI imagery blended with live-action footage; and LED-wall backdrops behind the actors' performances. Our Shenzhen team handled nine story films, including “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World,” “The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains” and “Kuafu Chases the Sun,” while our Xi'an team handled LED-wall backdrops for live-action segments such as “Bearing Thorns to Beg Forgiveness” and “Reconciliation of the General and the Minister.”
02
The production team gave us the original allusion texts, which read well but don't necessarily film well.
The original text of “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World” includes details such as bringing wine and meat to pay respects, agreeing to come back the next day, and the family thinking he had died. We kept the main thread of “discovery, visit, entering the gourd, the gift of bamboo, practicing medicine” and rewrote it into 12 lines of narration, each matched to a group of shots.
“The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains” was rewritten with dialogue. His wife asks: “You can't even move a small hill, and you want to move two great mountains?” The old man replies: “When I die, I'll have sons; when my sons die, there will be grandsons.” Once the characters speak, the story gains some back-and-forth.
The whole series used the same narrator voice; subtitles had no punctuation and no more than 13 characters per screen. We delivered versions with sound and subtitles to the production team so experts could check them against the visuals line by line. Any lines adjusted in the edit were synced back to the master script so the films and documents matched word for word.
03
On day one, we produced style frames, using a few images to present the overall look for the production team to discuss. All shots used a 16:9 frame.
Characters were designed and submitted for approval first, before we moved on to other images. Kuafu, for instance, was given long unkempt hair, a tiger-skin skirt and a staff; the designs for Jingwei and Nüwa were also approved by the production team first.
When making images, we looked at the surrounding shots: content, color and lighting couldn't feel disjointed, and no image could be made pretty just for its own sake.
Each of the nine stories has its own color: warm golden mountains for “The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains,” a blue sea for “Jingwei Fills the Sea,” red fire for “Nezha.” But within each film, the lead's hair, costume and props stay consistent from start to finish.
04
The hardest part of an allusion to film is often its most magical moment. How does the old man “jump into” the gourd? How do ten days become ten years?
We tried having the old man simply jump into the gourd, but the motion looked abrupt. The final approach: the old man walks slowly toward a golden ring of light at the shop door and vanishes into the light; the ring fades and the gourd at the door sways gently. When generating this shot, the prompt described exactly that action: “A white-haired old man is surrounded by a ring of light and disappears into it; finally the ring fades away, and the gourd beside it sways slightly.”
The old man walks into the golden ring of light, which grows brighter until he vanishes into it.
“Returning home after ten days, only to find ten years had passed” is told with a tree. The small tree by the shop door first appears once at night; when Fei Changfang returns on his bamboo, the same spot holds a big tree with a thick trunk.
In the same place, a small tree has grown into a big one, and ten years pass in a single cut.
“Kuafu Chases the Sun” follows the same idea: after the giant falls, his staff turns into a peach grove.
05
Another set of visuals wasn't played on its own but shown on the studio's LED wall, with actors performing in front of it.
The challenges of these backdrops are very specific: the perspective must match the camera position, the architecture must fit the dynasty, the lighting must match the studio lights, and the scale of figures must be right. Our workflow: find reference images → generate from the references → inpaint doors, windows, pillars and eaves → correct in Photoshop → color grade → add subtle motion with Kling.
For example, Lian Po's residence in “Bearing Thorns to Beg Forgiveness” was generated after the architecture of the Lian Po residence site in Handan; once the director approved the composition, we cleaned up period-inaccurate details at the edges and upscaled it to the resolution needed for the screen. When the director pointed out that carpets didn't exist in that era yet, we inpainted the carpet out.
The motion is restrained too: a slow push-in, branches swaying gently, curtains stirring slightly. The backdrop only establishes era and place; it never upstages the actors.
06
The program aired on CCTV-1, with 200M+ views across platforms and a single-episode high of 60M+.
For the program, allusions no longer rely solely on the host to tell them. Contestants and viewers “see” the story first, then think of the idiom.
For us, the project left a complete working method: rewrite the original text into filmable copy, set the style and characters first, break the magical moments down into actions viewers can follow, and finally check the subtitles line by line. The same method suits cultural tourism, Party-building and popular-science films, any film that needs to tell one story clearly.
The story finally returns to healing the sick, landing on the idiom “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World.”
FAQ
Yes. The nine AI idiom story films in this project were delivered in landscape HD with consistent voiceover and subtitles, checked line by line by experts via the production team, then aired on “Exploring China Through Idioms” on CCTV-1. Images without enough resolution were upscaled before being used to generate video.
First set each character's design and have the production team approve it; Kuafu, for instance, has long unkempt hair, a tiger-skin skirt and a staff. All later shots are generated from the approved character references and checked against neighboring shots for color and lighting, rather than judging each image on its own.
Yes. We made live-action LED-wall backdrops for ten allusions, including “Bearing Thorns to Beg Forgiveness” and “Reconciliation of the General and the Minister”: perspective set to the camera position, images generated from historical sites and dynastic styles, details such as doors, windows and eaves inpainted, and subtle motion like slow push-ins and gently swaying branches added so the backdrops support the actors' performance.
The first style frames came out in late November 2024, images and video were produced intensively in December, final refinement was completed in January 2025, and the program aired in February, about two and a half months in total.
Approach
The allusion shorts were based on the program's original scripts, rewritten into copy suited to filming. “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World” keeps the discovery, the visit, entering the gourd and practicing medicine while condensing the original narrative. The narration, subtitles and script of the finished film were checked line by line, and a version with sound and subtitles was submitted to the production team for review.
We made separate reference images for characters and props: the old man changes from healer to immortal, Fei Changfang from official to healer, with the gourd and green bamboo tying these changes together. During storyboard refinement, we added motion for entering the gourd, the flight and the tree's growth so the key plot points line up with the narration.
The live-action backdrops were made to the era, space and lighting references the program provided. We first set composition and lighting with reference images, then inpainted details such as doors, pillars and eaves, refined them in Photoshop when needed, and finally added subtle ambient motion and exported to LED-wall specs.
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