The 24 Solar Terms
Long daylight, star trails, plum rains and Summer Solstice food come together on the fullest day of summer.
01 / Background
“Summer Solstice” is an explainer short in the 24 Solar Terms series: it had to make clear how the lengths of day and night change, and also capture the climate, customs and daily life of the season. An abstract idea of time had to be grasped quickly in a short video, while the images kept the brightness and ease of summer.
The film moves from grasslands and snow-capped mountains, sky framed by green leaves and fields of flowers to star trails and plum rain south of the Yangtze, and ends with making noodles and mung bean soup. Natural scenery sets the season, and handmade food feels familiar, so by the time viewers finish taking in the landscapes, they also remember the solar term.
02 / Creative Highlights
Bright skies set against deep-blue star trails, and the shifting light on lakes and mountains, carry the narration about day and night. By showing time through color and light, the film spares viewers from having to grasp astronomical ideas through words alone.
Highland meadows, fields of flowers, a lake in plum rain and canyon waters each show a different face of summer. As shot distance and setting change step by step, the stream of information leaves room for natural scenery to be enjoyed at a slower pace.
Close-ups of rolling noodle dough and mung bean soup turn the custom from a word into details in the hands and in the bowl. Cutting from wide views to food and handwork connects the solar term with viewers’ everyday lives.
The roll of the rolling pin, chopsticks lifting noodles and the small ripples around the boat give the images a real rhythm of life. During production we checked hand shapes, direction of movement, objects appearing out of nowhere and the size of ripples one by one; these details directly affect whether an explainer short is believable and pleasant to watch.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The date is announced over a wide view of the Bayanbulak Grassland, then the camera looks up at blue sky between the leaves, establishing the time of year with the most sunshine.
The Kaidu River winds back and forth across green meadows, the distant snow peaks tinted pink and gold by the glow of the sky, as the narrator gives the date: June 21, 2026.
Looking straight up into the canopy, bright green feathery leaves frame a patch of clean blue sky, stirring gently in the breeze.
The narration explains that the Summer Solstice was “the first solar term to be determined,” that it has “the longest daylight,” and that “afterward the days grow shorter and the nights longer”; the images race from a narrow canyon into open fields of flowers, then take the Li River from day into a starry night.
The camera speeds through a red sandstone slot canyon, its moss-covered walls rushing past, until the way ahead suddenly opens into light.
Out of the canyon lie the lavender fields of Huocheng in Ili, with purple rows covering the gentle slopes and big white clouds rolling across the blue sky, matching “the day with the longest daylight.”
The same karst peaks along the Li River appear first in a sunny time-lapse with clouds racing past; in the next shot night falls, and stars trace arcs above the peaks, matching “the nights grow longer.”
Three faces of summer, one shot per line: a cicada on a tree trunk, a lotus pond outside a garden window, and West Lake in misty rain.
A macro shot of a cicada on a tree trunk, every vein in its wings clearly visible; then a pond full of pink lotuses outside an octagonal window in a white wall.
West Lake is wrapped in a pale blue haze, Leifeng Pagoda faintly visible in the distance: “the Yangtze-Huai region is in its plum rain season.”
Starting with a family eating noodles around a table, the film goes back to rolling out the dough, then to a bowl of cold noodles served at the table, followed by mung bean soup and bayberries on the branch.
In a small courtyard by a lotus pond, a family of four sits around a round wooden table, each with a bowl of noodles, as the mother lifts noodles with her chopsticks.
A pair of hands rolls out dough on a floured wooden table; the next shot shows a bowl of cold noodles topped with shredded cucumber, tomato and beef, as chopsticks lift the noodles, matching “tasting the new harvest and whetting the appetite.”
A spoon scoops mung bean soup, the beans cooked until they burst, from a glass bowl; then a hand picks a red bayberry from a branch beaded with water: “eat more sour foods to cool down in summer.”
“The sun’s shadow is at its shortest” is paired with a small boat whose shadow has shrunk to right beneath its hull, and the film ends on a road beside Sayram Lake: “a new scene is in the making.”
Looking down on crystal-clear green water in an Enshi canyon, a small boat floats with its shadow falling directly beneath it; the shot carries on through “summer is in full swing.”
Blue lake water stretches out beside the grassland as a car drives along the lakeside road and clouds drift overhead, ending the film in an open summer landscape.
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
In the order of the finished film: each shot describes what it shows, alongside the final still used in the film.
Shot 1.1
The Bayanbulak Grassland in Xinjiang, where the Kaidu River meanders across green meadows and distant snow peaks are lit warm orange, pink and gold, as the camera slowly rises.
Shot 1.2
Looking up into the canopy, with the leaves gathered in the four corners of the frame, leaving a large clean patch of blue sky in the middle; only the leaves move in the wind.
Shot 2.1
A low-angle shot looking up through a red sandstone slot canyon, its left wall covered in moss, with a strip of blue sky above. The camera speeds out from here into the lavender fields of the next shot.
Shot 2.2
Lavender fields on layered gentle slopes in Huocheng, Ili, with a lone pine on the hillside in clear, bright midday sun.
Shot 2.3
Two images of the same karst peaks along the Li River: a daytime time-lapse and a starry sky after nightfall. Cut together, the two shots tell “the days grow shorter and the nights longer.”
Shot 3.1
A shallow-focus macro shot of a green cicada on a grey-brown trunk, with soft-focus willow leaves and blue sky behind.
Shot 3.2
The octagonal window in a white wall of a garden south of the Yangtze, with lotus leaves and a few pink lotuses in the foreground and the lake and a small boat visible through the window.
Shot 3.3
Leifeng Pagoda at West Lake stands in misty rain, with stone piers and a wooden platform emerging from the lake in the foreground, the whole frame veiled in pale blue haze.
Shot 4.1
In a small courtyard by a lotus pond, a family of four eats noodles around a round wooden table, four people with four bowls, each eating their own; no text on the wall, so the frame stays clean.
Shot 4.2
Only the tabletop and a pair of hands: a rolling pin spreads dough on a floured wooden table, against a white wall and sunlit green trees.
Shot 4.3
A slightly high-angle shot of a freshly made bowl of noodles topped with shredded cucumber, with tomato and beef alongside and a wooden spoon and chopsticks to one side.
Shot 4.4
A glass bowl of mung bean soup, simmered until the beans burst, with light passing through the soup as a spoon scoops some up.
Shot 4.5
A bayberry branch beaded with water; the camera pushes in gently as a hand reaches in from the side to pick one.
Shot 5.1
Crystal-clear emerald water in a canyon, a small boat floating on it with its shadow shrunk to right beneath the hull, showing “the sun’s shadow is at its shortest.”
Shot 5.2
Blue lake water, green grassland and a lakeside road; the camera slowly pushes forward as a car drives past, with green summer mountains in the distance.
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
Completed a roughly 48-second vertical Summer Solstice short with matching posters and banners. The video weaves the season together through scenery, climate and food, while the posters and banners carry on the teal-green palette and the small-boat key image, so they can work together across different platforms and placements.
Case Study
On the Summer Solstice, the day is longest and shadows are shortest.
This is one episode of the 24 Solar Terms series we produced: a 48-second vertical short with matching posters and banners.
The challenge: “the longest daylight,” “the days grow shorter and the nights longer” and “the sun’s shadow is at its shortest” are all ideas about time and light, and they had to be understood at a glance in a short video.
01
The second line of narration says: the Summer Solstice was the first solar term to be determined, it is the day with the longest daylight of the year, and afterward the days grow shorter and the nights longer.
We broke this line into two visual changes. First, a dark slot canyon: the camera races forward as the rock walls rush past, then bursts out into a lavender field blazing with sunlight, from dark to light, as if the day had been stretched to its longest.
Racing forward through a narrow canyon and bursting out into the wide, bright lavender fields of Huocheng.
Then the same stretch of the Li River tells “the days grow shorter and the nights longer”: first a daytime time-lapse with clouds racing past; in the next shot the same landscape darkens into a sky full of stars. The place stays the same, the light changes, and the passing of time becomes visible.
02
Seen together, each episode of the solar-term series needs a season you can tell apart at a glance. In the first draft, several shots had snow-capped mountains in the distance, which put the wrong season into a summer solar term.
We went back through these images. In the closing shot at Sayram Lake, the snow peaks in the distance became green mountains, and we added a lakeside road with a passing car, so the scene feels more like a midsummer road trip.
The opening shot looking up through the leaves was also pared down: we removed the crescent moon between the branches and added no passing planes or birds, keeping only leaves moving in the breeze and a patch of clean blue sky.
03
For “there is a folk custom of eating noodles on the Summer Solstice, made with freshly milled wheat flour,” we turned it into a continuous series of actions: a family eating noodles around a table, a pair of hands rolling dough, a bowl of cold noodles brought to the table, and chopsticks lifting the noodles.
We set two rules for the noodle-eating shot: no text on the wall, and four bowls for the four people at the table. One bowl each, everyone eating their own, makes the frame cleaner and more natural.
Hands are where AI images most often go wrong. The dough-rolling and noodle-lifting shots were all generated in 4K, with the hand movements kept small so fingers and noodles stay clear and natural.
A family eats noodles around the table, followed by a close-up of rolling dough.
04
The closing narration is: “The sun’s shadow is at its shortest, summer is in full swing, and a new scene is in the making.”
For “the sun’s shadow is at its shortest,” we chose a small boat in an Enshi canyon. The water is clear to the bottom and the noon sun is almost directly overhead, so the boat’s shadow shrinks to right beneath it, and you can see at a glance just how short the shadow is.
This shot was originally paired with only “the sun’s shadow is at its shortest,” while “summer is in full swing” had its own forest shot. Cutting three images across two lines felt too choppy, so we let the boat shot run through “summer is in full swing,” which steadied the rhythm, and then ended on Sayram Lake.
The boat with its shadow beneath the hull leads into the open summer view of the lakeside road.
05
The Summer Solstice script contains many ideas about time and light. Our approach: find a visible change for each idea, from dark to light, from day to a starry sky, a shadow shrinking beneath a boat.
The customs, meanwhile, come down to hands and bowls: rolling dough, lifting noodles, scooping mung bean soup, picking bayberries, all things viewers have done and eaten themselves.
The film keeps the series’ bright palette while making sure the season is clearly summer, so alongside the earlier episodes each one has its own season and they are easy to tell apart.
FAQ
This film tells it through light and shifts from dark to bright: racing out of a dim slot canyon into a sunlit lavender field shows the longest day; the same stretch of the Li River moving from a daytime time-lapse to a starry sky shows “the days grow shorter and the nights longer”; and “the sun’s shadow is at its shortest” is a small boat with its shadow shrunk beneath the hull.
Hand shots like rolling dough, lifting noodles and picking bayberries were all generated in 4K, with the hand movements kept small; every version was checked separately for finger shape and motion, and anything with problems was regenerated until the hands and noodles looked natural.
The Summer Solstice episode took about 5 days from creating the script document to delivery: a team split the work on stills and animation, a rough cut came out on day 4, then the noodle-eating shot, the distant mountains and the opening leaves were adjusted, and the film, copy, posters and banners were delivered on day 5.
One finished 9:16 vertical film at 1440 × 2560, with a matching vertical poster and landscape banner. Both use the same solar-term wordmark and teal-green palette, and the landscape version’s background colors were adjusted together with the final vertical version.
Approach
The script first separates information about the season, the climate and food, then spells out the still image, duration and direction of movement shot by shot. Passing through a narrow canyon, a gentle push across the flower fields, rolling dough and picking fruit are all written as clear actions, so the generated shots can be selected and edited to serve the story.
Stills and motion were reviewed separately, focusing on hand shapes, ripples on the water, the direction the boat moves and anything that pops up unexpectedly in transitions; the image or motion was fixed first before the next round of video.
The video, posters and banners share one solar-term wordmark and seasonal palette. The banner’s gradients and mountain colors were adjusted together with the final vertical version, and the water and small boat recur across formats, making them easy to remember; the same content works as a phone video and as illustrations for posts.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
