The 24 Solar Terms
Starting with a dragonfly and moving to the fields and the dinner table, the film gathers the natural changes, farm work and customs of early summer into one piece.
01 / Background
The Start of Summer episode had to explain what the first solar term of summer means, and tie together the changing signs of the season, summer harvesting, planting and field management, and everyday customs. The short couldn't just show summer scenery; viewers had to see “growing and flourishing” for themselves and connect it with their own daily lives.
The film opens on a dragonfly and the first lotus leaves, moves through grasslands, soil, flowers and work in the fields, and ends with a family tasting the season's first produce, weighing people under a tree, and city traffic. Fresh blue-green tones form the natural backdrop, while the warm fields and dinner table bring the warmth of daily life; small creatures, farm work and everyday activities together express “growing and flourishing.”
02 / Creative Highlights
The dragonfly takes off from a carved stone baluster, and the camera pulls back with it to reveal water where lotus leaves have just emerged; the film then cuts from a wide view of the lake to flocks of cranes and herds of running animals. Going from one small thing to a wide-open setting gives the viewer's eye a clear path and lets the opening move from near to far.
A combine harvester at work, people at the field's edge flying drones, and an overhead view of drone flight paths over the fields stand for harvesting, planting and field management. People, machines and surroundings appear one after another in neighboring shots, so the farm work has scale and viewers can still see exactly what is being done.
Shelling beans, seasonal food and a family tasting the first produce of the season bring solar-term knowledge back into everyday life. Hands at work and close-ups of food are easier to grasp than abstract good wishes, and they make the vitality of early summer feel close to home.
The drone-seeding shots had to make clear who was flying the drone and with what. The camera puts the pilot holding the remote, the drone and the paddy field in one frame, then cuts to flight paths over the field, giving “summer planting and field management” clear, concrete actions.
03 / Scene Breakdown
A damselfly perches on the stone lotus atop a white marble baluster, and the camera pulls back with it to reveal lotus leaves just breaking the surface of the lake. Start of Summer opens with a very small life.
Under a blue sky with white clouds, a slender damselfly rests on top of a lotus-petal white marble baluster while another flutters beside it. Narration: Good morning, today is May 5, 2026.
The camera pulls back around the stone railing; the lake holds only curled young lotus leaves and a few small pads, with trees and a pavilion on an island in the distance, matching “the 19th day of the third lunar month, Start of Summer.”
An aerial shot of an emerald salt lake descends to black-necked cranes in the wetland, then cuts to horses running across the grassland, matching “Li means to establish; xia means growing and flourishing.”
Looking down on a lake of interwoven jade green and sapphire blue, the camera descends all the way to the water's edge, where a few black-necked cranes stand tall in the shallows, heads held high.
A herd of brown horses gallops along a green hillside, with scattered wildflowers in the foreground and rolling grassland and white clouds in the distance.
The camera hugs the ground: damp soil under broad leaves, plantain beaded with dew, locust blossoms fallen on the earth, a snake gourd flower opening, and finally a sudden opening out to a vast grassland below snowy mountains.
A low camera tucks under a clump of broad Dysosma leaves beaded with water, with dark, damp soil below, matching “the soil is warm and moist.”
Plantain sends up spikes from the ground; then a few strings of white locust blossoms lie on the soil beneath fern fronds as the earth swells slightly, matching “mole crickets begin to sing, and earthworms come out.”
A snake gourd bud opens on the vine, and the picture then cuts straight to green grassland and a log cabin below snowy mountains, matching “vines climb, and summer has arrived.”
A combine harvester works a golden field, drone pilots at the edge of a paddy sow seeds by drone, and a top-down view shows a drone formation sweeping over the wheat.
The combine's reel sweeps in the ripe crop, with the driver in the cab; then three people stand at the edge of a paddy field, flying drones with handheld remotes, matching “spring crops have ripened, and autumn crops are to be sown.”
Shot from directly above, several drones fly in formation low over the green wheat, their shadows falling on the rippling crop, matching “the fields enter the busy season of summer harvesting, planting and field management.”
In a courtyard, a family shells broad beans and reaches for cherries and green plums; under a big tree, students weigh someone on an old wooden steelyard; finally, willow branches and irises by a lake, and a city overpass lined with roses.
Cherries, green plums and broad beans sit on a wooden table in a white-walled courtyard as several pairs of hands reach in at once, shelling pods and picking up plums, matching “on this day, people taste the three fresh delights.”
A large wooden steelyard hangs from an old tree; a boy sits laughing in a bamboo basket while two students in white shirts slide the weight along the beam for him, matching “weighing in the afternoon, hoping summer's blessings stay full.”
Willow branches droop by the lake and purple irises are in bloom; then a view down onto a city road, where red roses cover the overpass railings above a steady stream of traffic, matching “amid the bustle, life is thriving.”
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
Listed in the order of the finished film: each shot notes which line of narration it matches and what it shows, followed by the final still used in the film.
Shot 1.1
Matches “Good morning, today is May 5, 2026.” A lotus-petal white marble baluster on a stone bridge in Beihai, with an early-summer damselfly perched on the tip of the stone lotus.
Shot 1.2
Matches “the 19th day of the third lunar month, Start of Summer.” The camera looks past the stone railing; the lake holds only curled leaves just out of the water and a few small lotus pads, well before the lake fills with blossoms.
Shot 1.3
Matches “this is the first solar term of summer.” An aerial view of an emerald salt lake in Qinghai, its greens and blues like a painter's palette, with no trace of human activity.
Shot 1.4
Matches “li means to establish.” As the plateau warms, black-necked cranes stand firm in the shallows with heads held high, their upright stance expressing “li.”
Shot 1.5
Matches “xia means growing and flourishing.” Horses break into a gallop on the Nalati Grassland, with a few early-summer wildflowers kept in the foreground.
Shot 2.1
Matches “the soil is warm and moist.” The camera hides beneath the Dysosma leaves common in the Qinling Mountains, the leaves beaded with water above damp humus.
Shot 2.2
Matches “mole crickets begin to sing.” No insects are shown, only plantain and a drop of dew on a leaf tip, its slight trembling standing in for the sound.
Shot 2.3
Matches “earthworms come out.” Fern fronds frame the foreground, white Qinling locust blossoms of May lie on the soil, and a small mound slowly rises and pushes the flowers up.
Shot 2.4
Matches “vines climb.” “The snake gourd grows” is one of the traditional signs of Start of Summer, shown in time-lapse as the bud opens into a flower.
Shot 2.5
Matches “summer has arrived.” A hard cut from the tiny world of the soil to mountain grassland below snowy peaks, with no transition, a wide shot announcing the start of summer.
Shot 3.1
Matches “spring crops have ripened.” The combine's reel sweeps in the ripe crop, and the camera pulls back from the machine up close to a whole golden field.
Shot 3.2
Matches “autumn crops are to be sown.” Drone pilots at the edge of a paddy field sow seed using proper drone remote controllers, so it's clear at a glance what they're doing.
Shot 3.3
Matches “the fields enter the busy season of summer harvesting, planting and field management.” Shot from directly above, a drone formation sweeps over green wheat at the grain-filling stage.
Shot 4.1
Matches “on this day, people taste the three fresh delights.” Only hands are shown: shelling broad beans, picking up cherries, passing green plums, hands of different ages gathered at the same table.
Shot 4.2
Matches “weighing in the afternoon, hoping summer's blessings stay full.” A big wooden steelyard under an ancient tree, with students in white shirts sliding the weight for a friend sitting in the basket.
Shot 4.3
Matches “summer begins from this day.” Drooping willow branches by the lake and purple irises in full bloom: flowers and water together signal early summer.
Shot 4.4
Matches “amid the bustle, life is thriving.” A city overpass with roses all along its railings and morning rush-hour traffic, bustle and vitality in the same frame.
05 / Results
We completed a vertical Start of Summer short of about 45 seconds covering the seasonal signs, farm production and customs of early summer, with a matching Start of Summer poster and banner.
Case Study
Start of Summer is the first solar term of summer, and the narration is about “growing and flourishing.”
Instead of opening on grand midsummer scenery, we started with a damselfly resting on a stone railing.
In a vertical short of about 45 seconds, the film travels from the early lotus leaves of Beihai to the plateau, the soil, the fields, a courtyard and a city overpass. This is the Start of Summer episode we made for the 24 Solar Terms series.
01
“Growing and flourishing” most easily brings to mind a screen full of green and flowers everywhere.
We went the other way and started with the smallest thing: on a stone bridge in Beihai, a lotus-petal white marble baluster with a slender damselfly perched on top.
The camera pulls back with it and the lake comes into view. The lotus leaves here were deliberately held back: only curled young leaves and a few small pads, no sweep of lotus blossoms. That is simply what a lotus pond looks like in early May.
The damselfly rests on the tip of the stone lotus, and the camera pulls back to reveal lotus leaves just breaking the water.
Only then does the picture grow, step by step: an emerald salt lake in Qinghai, black-necked cranes standing in the shallows as the plateau warms, horses galloping across the grassland. From one insect to a whole plateau, the word “growing” takes on a direction.
02
The Start of Summer narration includes two seasonal signs: mole crickets begin to sing, and earthworms come out.
Shown directly, these two little creatures would make many viewers uncomfortable. Our solution was not to show the creatures, but the traces they leave.
For “the soil is warm and moist,” the camera hides under a broad Dysosma leaf, looking at the water drops on it and the damp soil below; for “mole crickets sing,” it shows a drop of dew on the tip of a plantain leaf, trembling gently with the sound; for “earthworms come out,” a few strings of white Qinling locust blossoms from May lie on the soil as the earth slowly swells and pushes the flowers up.
For “vines climb,” we used the snake gourd. Its flowering is itself one of the signs of Start of Summer recorded by the ancients, shown in time-lapse as the bud slowly opens.
Damp soil under broad leaves, plantain, then locust blossoms fallen on the earth.
03
A solar-term film is an explainer for everyone, and anything in the frame might prompt the question: what is that, and is it right?
Before production, every seasonal sign and custom in the narration was fact-checked; at the finished-film stage, we went through it shot by shot again, and anything unclear or off-topic was revised the same day.
What is the drone pilot doing? The pilot at the edge of the paddy was originally holding a small device that looked like a phone, and people unfamiliar with it couldn't tell what it was. We swapped in a proper drone remote controller, so it's clear at a glance that he's flying a drone.
Which are the three fresh delights of Start of Summer? It varies from place to place. We chose cherries, green plums and broad beans, which appear in several versions of the custom, and relied on written sources; the broad beans were also too big, so we scaled them down to look more like the real thing.
Early summer needs more flowers. Start of Summer is about “growing and flourishing,” so the frame should hold more flowers in bloom: the Tibetan wild asses running on the plateau were replaced with horses on the Nalati Grassland, with early-summer wildflowers added in the foreground; a rainforest mountain spring was replaced with willow branches and purple irises by a lake; and the motorcycle on a winding mountain road at the end became a city overpass lined with roses and morning rush-hour traffic.
The revised ending: flowers by the lake, traffic in the city.
04
The Start of Summer episode followed the series' approach: bright images, and every shot checked for season and place first, before asking whether it looks good.
What sets this episode apart is its pacing: starting from a damselfly, a drop of dew and a locust blossom, it slowly widens to the plateau, the wheat fields and the city.
What viewers see is how summer grows out of small places: the soil turns damp, flowers open, the fields get busy, people sit together tasting the three fresh delights, and the city's morning rush is lined with flowers.
That is the last line of the narration: summer begins from this day, and amid the bustle, life is thriving.
FAQ
The Start of Summer episode doesn't show the creatures directly, but the traces they leave: the singing of mole crickets is shown through the faint trembling of dew on a leaf tip, and earthworms coming out through soil swelling and pushing up the locust blossoms lying on it.
Written sources come first, and we pick what several versions have in common. For example, the three fresh delights of Start of Summer differ from place to place, so the film uses cherries, green plums and broad beans, which appear in many versions.
Shots are arranged according to how the work is really done: drone pilots seeding a paddy field hold proper drone remote controllers, summer field management in the wheat is shown as an overhead drone formation, and the combine harvester is shot as the first harvest of early summer.
After review, several changes were made to the Start of Summer episode, including the size of the broad beans, the pilot's device and a few scene replacements, and the revised cut was delivered the same day.
Approach
The storyboard follows the script line by line, assigning seasonal signs, farm work and daily-life scenes, and spells out details such as how far the lotus leaves have grown, what season the crops are in and how the farm work is done. Wide scenes and small details take turns, so just over forty seconds of information has both distance and closeness.
The film links nature and daily life through its dragonfly, field and first-taste segments, the series' unified captions explain each piece of knowledge, and the film ends on the institution's logo. Colors are bright and natural throughout, and each segment still has a clear subject and the right shot size.
In checking the images, we looked both at whether the knowledge was right and whether the actions were clear: the early lotus uses leaves just out of the water that haven't yet covered the lake; the three fresh delights are shown through hands picking up broad beans, green plums and cherries; and the farming segment puts the pilot, the equipment and the flight paths in the same shots, making clear who is operating. This way the solar-term information comes with both captions and visible things and actions.
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