City & Tourism
Longgang is told from several angles, including personal travel, low-carbon daily life, local intangible heritage and visions of the city, turning city introductions into short films with a storyline and a sense of experience.
01 / Background
Longgang's city promotion had to cover culture and tourism, young people's lives, green energy, local culture and more. The series splits these by theme into separate shorts: in the famous-paintings film, figures from paintings take viewers around Longgang; the low-carbon films place new technology in commutes and city services; the intangible heritage film strings streets and lanes together with local crafts; and the others express the city's character through young people's lives and fantasy-style imagery.
This page plays the flagship film, “Van Gogh and Mona Lisa's Longgang Adventure”; the other films are introduced on their own pages. The flagship film had to promote Longgang's landmarks, and it tells a story of friendship: the two arrive separately, narrowly miss each other, meet again, tour the city together and finally return to a painting, with Longgang's landmarks appearing one by one along the way.
AI technical support for the flagship film was provided by Liandan AI Studio.
02 / Creative Highlights
Instead of having the figures from famous paintings take turns posing in front of landmarks, the flagship film has the two step out of their frames separately and then recognize each other at the robot exhibition area. Their relationship changes inside the city's tech exhibition hall, and viewers want to keep exploring with them.
The film opens on the buildings of the Zero-Carbon Park, instantly recognizable as Longgang. A curved staircase, the Twin Towers, a Ferris wheel and warmly lit lanes appear in turn, so viewers remember these places by how the buildings look and what the characters do there, not just from place names in the subtitles.
The low-carbon films start from a woman's commute, the city's ecology and energy dispatching respectively, using concrete scenes such as rooftop farms, electric buses, underwater cleaning robots and charging equipment. Some follow one person's daily life, others the whole city; abstract technology lands in everyday scenes, and each film has its own focus.
The intangible heritage film uses guochao gongbi painting and ink-wash scenes, the young-life films use warm light and a series of character vignettes to convey a relaxed feel, and the steampunk film depicts an imagined city with gears and mechanized landmarks. Different subjects get different styles; what was made for each film and how it turned out are covered on their own pages.
03 / Scene Breakdown
This is the opening of Film 1 in the series (see p170 for the episode page). The two leads appear one after another, with their names right on screen, so it's clear from the first glance who they are.
Van Gogh in the oil painting becomes a real person in a light gray suit, with the white spiral staircase of the Zero-Carbon Park behind him and his name in orange sliding across the middle of the frame.
Mona Lisa walks across the lawn in a long black dress, her name appearing beside her; in the background, Van Gogh stands with his back to her, just a few steps away.
The camera pulls back until the words “Zero-Carbon Living Pavilion” and the ring-shaped roof are clearly visible, as the two walk out of frame on opposite sides.
The city skyline and a tech exhibition hall appear one after the other, and the two leads go from wandering separately to exploring together.
Mona Lisa and Van Gogh walk one after the other across a terrace by the street, with the Twin Towers and rows of high-rises behind them under a pale pink morning sky.
A white humanoid robot moves on a stage surrounded by onlookers; Van Gogh watches for a while, then turns around and smiles.
In a hall lit in blue and white, the two talk face to face as the robot behind them keeps turning. From here on, they travel together.
The pace slows, the images turn warm, and the city's leisure spots come into view.
The pink “Longgang Children's Park” sign hangs overhead as Van Gogh turns to wave Mona Lisa over.
First, from outside, a transparent gondola hangs above the whole amusement park; then inside, Van Gogh raises his hand and points into the distance as the sun sets at the edge of the city.
After dark, they walk into Gankeng Ancient Town, and finally the characters turn back into an oil painting as the film ends on a white end card. This end card is shared by all ten films.
The two, seen from behind, pass through the illuminated “Gankeng” gateway, then walk onto a flagstone street hung with red lanterns.
The two stand under the “Alley Market” sign facing the camera, like tourists posing for a photo.
Red lanterns light the entrance of an academy; Van Gogh smiles and waves at the camera, with Mona Lisa beside him.
The image becomes an oil painting in Van Gogh's brushwork and is hung in a gold frame; finally, the white end card: the Longgang city logo, “Presented by the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen” and “AI technical support by Liandan AI Studio.”
04 / Gallery
05 / Results
The series has ten Longgang-themed films; click a title below to read about each one. The flagship film runs about 52 seconds and, like “My Light, Low-Carbon Everyday,” has been released on WeChat Channels.
What was delivered for each film, and which parts AI supported, is explained on its own page.
Case Study
Making ten promo films in a row for the same city, the hard part isn't making one good film; it's making ten that don't repeat.
In 2025, the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen asked us to make a set of Longgang city shorts with AI: figures from famous paintings touring the city, young people's daily lives, a low-carbon trilogy, an intangible heritage scroll, steampunk, an academy animation... each running from 35 seconds to just over 2 minutes.
This page isn't about any single film; it's about how the ten were made together: what was kept uniform, and what was deliberately made different.
01
The Longgang District Publicity Department had a lot to say: landmarks and tourism, young people's lifestyles, the green low-carbon conference, local intangible heritage, and history at the academy. Put it all in one film and none of it gets told properly.
Our approach: one topic per film. Some topics came from the speaking outline of a district conference, some from the agenda of the green low-carbon conference, and some from Longgang's intangible heritage projects and the Twenty-Four Histories Academy. Each film can be released on its own, and together the ten form a complete city calling card.
“Longgang Is Fun” turns a conference speech into a series of questions and answers, as a girl learns to paint from an artist in Dafen Oil Painting Village. See p171 for the episode page.
02
The ten films were made by several teams working separately, with different subjects and art styles, so a few things were standardized first.
Ending: a white background with Longgang's new city identity logo and “Presented by the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen” in the middle, and “AI technical support by Liandan AI Studio” on the bottom line. The standard is a hard cut to the end card, held for two seconds, with no sound; the first few films used a fade-in, which was later unified.
Subtitles: unified font, size and outline; following the approach of Institute for Planets, white text gets a black outline so it stays legible however bright the image is. Cover: stylized title lettering paired with the most representative image from the film. Music: licensed tracks from a stock music library, with a license kept for each film. All exports are MP4, and before delivery each film is placed in a white-background composition to check for black borders.
The two turn back into an oil painting, and the film ends on the white end card. The other nine films use the same end card.
03
The packaging is unified; the content is deliberately varied. The ten fall roughly into four groups:
New Visitors to Familiar Landmarks: Film 1 has Van Gogh and Mona Lisa step out of their frames to tour Longgang (p170); Film 7 has a robot dog ride the subway and wander Dafen before balloons carry it up to the Moon (p176); Film 9 rebuilds the Universiade Center, Longcheng Square and the Twin Towers into a steampunk city of copper-gold gears (p178).
Film 1 is the flagship of the series. Early proposals leaned toward landmark check-ins, with figures from famous paintings taking turns in front of landmarks. To give the film more story and more heart, we turned it into a friendship: the two step out of their frames separately, narrowly miss each other, meet again at the robot exhibition area, tour Longgang together, and finally return together into a new painting. We also deliberately opened on the buildings of the Zero-Carbon Park, instantly recognizable as Longgang.
Young People's Lives: Film 2, “Longgang Is Fun,” follows a girl to a concert, the oil painting village and an industrial park (p171); Film 8, “Longgang Has Something Special,” uses split screens and character switches to tell of the work and lives of four groups of young people (p177).
The Low-Carbon Trilogy: Films 3, 4 and 5, covered separately in the next section. Cultural Subjects: Film 6 paints qilin dancing, Hakka cool hats, tea cakes and other intangible heritage into a moving guochao scroll (p175); Film 10, “The Torch Dragon Tea Gathering,” uses 3D animation to tell the story of the Twenty-Four Histories Academy and is the longest of the ten (p179).
The camera swoops from above wooded hills straight into a copper-gold district of gears, the whole city working like one giant machine.
Finger painting and calligraphy and qilin dancing appear one after another along the scroll, as two children carrying a little golden dragon walk through the middle.
04
Films 3, 4 and 5 all came from Longgang's green low-carbon conference, and their topics overlap: transportation, solar power, energy and water management. If all three started from a wide view of the city, viewers would think they were watching the same film.
We gave each film a different way in: “My Light, Low-Carbon Everyday” follows a girl through her day, with the technology showing up in her morning and on her commute (p172); “Green Wonders of an Eco-City” opens with an AI hand, pairing each of its dozen or so topics with one person and one action (p173); “AI × Green Energy Fusion” follows electricity on a full loop, from streetlights generating power to charging a phone with one tap (p174).
The three were finalized together at the end of October 2025, with their subtitle styles and the flash-to-white transition at the end aligned, so together they read as a small series.
A girl picks strawberries from a rooftop planting rack, with the subtitle “It starts with living in harmony with nature.” The big topic of low carbon begins with one person's morning.
05
These films weren't scheduled all at once. In May 2025, we first delivered the low-carbon creative proposal; in September, Film 1, the Van Gogh film, was finalized; at the end of October, the low-carbon trilogy was finalized together; from late November, the intangible heritage, robot dog, steampunk, character shorts and other films started one after another, were completed around December, and the project was wrapped up and closed at year-end.
Each film was delivered as a 16:9 landscape final cut with subtitles, music and the unified ending, plus a cover with stylized title lettering and a music license. In 2026, Film 10, “The Torch Dragon Tea Gathering,” was remastered, tightened to 2 minutes 22 seconds with a brisker pace.
A young man sits in a study holding a teacup as golden book pages and firelight swirl into a vortex around him, leading into a journey of meeting history.
06
For the client, this means ten city shorts at once that can be released individually or shown as a set: famous paintings, low carbon, intangible heritage, steampunk and an academy animation, the same Longgang told ten different ways. Film 1 and the low-carbon trilogy have been released, and the Van Gogh film and “My Light, Low-Carbon Everyday” can be watched on WeChat Channels.
For peers making a series, there are two takeaways: Unify the packaging first: set standards for the end card, subtitles, covers and music licensing, so the work holds together even when several teams make it separately; Deliberately vary the content: give each film a new lead, a new art style and a new way in, so the ten don't repeat when seen together.
The making of each film can be found on the episode pages p170–p179.
FAQ
Set packaging standards first: all ten use the same white end card (the Longgang city logo, “Presented by the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen” and “AI technical support by Liandan AI Studio”), all subtitles get a black outline, every cover uses stylized title lettering with an image from the film, and all music comes from a licensed library with a license kept on file. The content varies freely while the packaging stays consistent.
Each film covers just one topic, with a different way in and a different art style: realistic compositing of figures from famous paintings, a robot dog as guide, steampunk makeovers of landmarks, young people in Q&A and split screen, a guochao gongbi scroll, and 3D animation. Even the three films from the same low-carbon conference start from one person's day, one AI hand and one kilowatt-hour of electricity respectively.
The low-carbon creative proposal was delivered in May 2025, Film 1 was finalized in September, the low-carbon trilogy was finalized together at the end of October, the remaining films started one after another from late November, were completed around December, and the project closed at year-end.
Each is a 16:9 landscape final film running from 35 seconds to just over 2 minutes, with subtitles, music and the end-card logo, plus a cover with stylized title lettering. The Van Gogh film and “My Light, Low-Carbon Everyday” have already been released on WeChat Channels.
Approach
Each theme got its own script and storyboard: first we worked out what about Longgang viewers should experience, then chose the right characters, landmarks and art style. Before delivery, the low-carbon films also had their subtitle styles unified, black borders checked and data interfaces refined.
In the flagship film, the two characters walk from the park, through the tech exhibition area and the Ferris wheel, all the way to the lanes at night, their faces and outfits staying consistent throughout. The reunion is the story's key turning point, and in the end the two return into a new painting: they come from a painting and go back into one, so the ending mirrors the opening.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
