The 24 Solar Terms
Lakes, mountain mist, ripening fields and the family table capture the fading summer heat and the anticipation of autumn.
01 / Background
The End of Heat episode is about summer heat fading and the harvest drawing near. No single object can explain this shift in the weather, so the film uses lake water, hostas and morning mist in the mountains to bring in a sense of coolness, then shows the anticipation of autumn through ripening fields and a family meal.
Nature, produce and family scenes tell this solar term together: viewers first feel the season changing, then see how that change shows up in the fields and in daily life. The short moves steadily from the landscape to the people.
02 / Creative Highlights
The blue-greens of lake water and mountain mist gradually give way to the warm gold of rice fields and food. The shift from cool to warm mirrors the heat fading and the harvest approaching, so as the image changes, the story moves forward too.
Rivers, fields and fruit trees are wide, open views, while the dinner table in the courtyard pulls the eye back to somewhere familiar. Linking landscape to family gives the seasonal explainer human feeling and concrete daily life. The meal scene focuses on small gestures: the family's glances, ladling porridge, picking up food with chopsticks. These familiar actions tell viewers at once that this is a family.
Duck, tea and the family meal turn customs into scenes you can see. The food close-ups give the short a moment to pause and connect seasonal knowledge with everyday life.
The short uses sunset glow and reflections on the water to convey the cool of evening, while the poster renders the same scenery as a traditional Chinese gongbi painting. The peaks, stone bridge and sky keep the same layout, so it's instantly recognizable; the calligraphy title and blank paper space match the style of the series' other posters.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The first three shots give the date and the solar term, then explain the character “chu”: it means to hide away or come to an end. This is where the summer heat should retreat.
Looking straight down, a winding wooden boardwalk stretches from the shore to an island in the middle of the lake, where a small pavilion stands. The water is a clear blue-green, and the trees along the shore already show yellow leaves.
Two white hostas hold drops of water against dark green leaves and a forest blurred into bokeh, as the camera pans slowly close to the flowers. The line “11th day of the 7th lunar month, End of Heat” appears here.
A squirrel crouches on an old mossy branch, nibbling a red-and-yellow apple held in both paws, then leaps off and leaves the branch empty, matching the meaning of “chu” as hiding away and coming to an end.
Over the lines “the scorching weather gradually comes to an end, a turning point as temperatures fall” and “the nights begin to feel a little cool,” three shots move from morning mist to dusk as the colors slowly warm from blue-green.
A blue-green river winds through a mountain valley; the woods on an island in the river are half golden, half dark green, and white mist drifts slowly between the mountains.
A wooden cabin floats on a wide lake, big white clouds reflected in the water, while reeds in the foreground sway gently in the wind.
The sky glows pink and orange at sunset and dark karst peaks stand in a row. A single-arch stone bridge and its reflection form a circle on the water, with a nearly ripe rice field behind the bridge.
The narration moves from “crops planted in spring begin to ripen” to the custom of eating duck at End of Heat to nourish qi and blood, as the images move from the fields to the dinner table.
Seen from high above, patches of golden rice fields stretch to the horizon, a wide river meanders through them, and villages and woods are scattered along the edges.
On a wooden table, a plate of glossy red braised duck steams beside a cup of black tea, a small dish of dipping sauce and a pair of chopsticks, with a few yellow leaves fallen on the table.
In a small white-walled courtyard, the father ladles red date and millet porridge from a big bowl for the children, while the mother and two kids gather around the wooden table set with a few light home-style dishes.
Over the closing line “The heat subsides, heaven and earth grow solemn, autumn brings joy, and a full harvest awaits,” one shot shows autumn colors on the water and another a branch laden with pomegranates, followed by the NDRC end card.
An overhead shot from high up shows a straight, deep blue waterway lined with dawn redwoods whose green is tinged with orange and gold, as a bamboo raft carrying visitors drifts slowly forward.
A few red pomegranates hang from a branch in the foreground, with a whole pomegranate orchard and blue sky with white clouds behind, as the camera slowly pulls back and rises.
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
The End of Heat episode was broken into eleven shots following the narration. They are listed below in the order of the finished film: each shot notes what it shows, alongside the final frame used in the film.
Shot 1.1
An overhead view of the winding wooden boardwalk and the small pavilion in the middle of the lake, with trees on the shore starting to turn yellow.
Shot 1.2
Two white hostas holding drops of water against a blurred background of forest bokeh.
Shot 1.3
A squirrel nibbles an apple on an old branch; the skin is red with yellow, with a stem and fine streaks, so it's instantly recognizable.
Shot 2.1
A blue-green river bends through a valley, the woods half green and half yellow, with morning mist among the mountains.
Shot 2.2
A wooden cabin floating on the lake, cloud shadows in the water, reeds in the foreground.
Shot 2.3
Karst peaks, sunset glow and a stone arch bridge, with a nearly ripe rice field behind it and water flowing under the bridge like a river through the arch.
Shot 3.1
Matching “crops planted in spring begin to ripen”: an aerial view of vast golden rice fields with a river curving between them.
Shot 3.2
Matching the custom of eating duck at End of Heat: a plate of braised duck, a cup of tea and a dish of dipping sauce.
Shot 3.3
A family of four in a small white-walled courtyard, with red date, millet and lotus seed porridge and a few light side dishes on the table, matching “foods that nourish qi and blood.”
Shot 4.1
An overhead view of a waterway lined with dawn redwoods and a single bamboo raft; only tree reflections on the water, keeping the frame clean.
Shot 4.2
Branches heavy with red pomegranates, with a whole orchard behind.
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
We completed a roughly 48-second vertical short for End of Heat, plus the official poster and banners. The short moves from lakes, mountains and animals to seasonal food, the family table and the orchard; the poster uses the stone bridge at sunset as its main image, so the video and the graphics work as a set.
Case Study
The “chu” in the Chinese name for End of Heat (Chushu) means to hide away or come to an end: this is where the summer heat should retreat.
This episode is about a turning point: the days are still hot, but mornings and evenings have turned cool, and the crops in the fields are nearly ripe.
We made the End of Heat episode for the 24 Solar Terms series: about 48 seconds, 11 shots, in 4K vertical format, from a boardwalk on a lake to a branch full of pomegranates. We also repainted one of the shots as a gongbi-style poster.
01
For the shot explaining the character “chu,” we used a squirrel: it nibbles a fruit a few times, then leaps off the branch, leaving it empty. “Hiding away” and “coming to an end” are told in a single action.
But what fruit is the squirrel holding? In an explainer for a government account, everything on screen has to be nameable, not some “wild berry” of unclear variety. We made it clearly an apple and redrew the skin: red with yellow, fine streaks, and a stem on top.
Why not have the squirrel eat a pine cone? Pine cones are brown, almost the same color as the squirrel's fur and the bark. A red apple adds a spot of brightness to a frame full of green and brown, and squirrels eating apples is common in real life too.
02
For the line “the nights begin to feel a little cool,” we used a stone arch bridge beneath karst peaks at dusk: the sky glows pink and orange, and the bridge and its reflection form a circle on the water.
The first draft had two details that didn't match the season or the terrain: beside the bridge were freshly flooded empty paddies, though by End of Heat the fields should be full of crops; and the water under the bridge was blocked by field ridges, looking like separate ponds rather than one continuous river. The final version replaced the area behind the bridge with a nearly ripe rice field and rearranged the water so it flows under the bridge like a river.
The next line, “crops planted in spring begin to ripen,” followed the same thinking. The first draft was a close-up of a single sorghum plant, showing just one stalk; the final version became an aerial view of vast rice fields with a river curving through the gold, because ripening happens across a whole stretch of land.
Sunset glow, karst peaks, a stone bridge and rice fields, matching “the nights begin to feel a little cool.”
03
Almost every episode of the solar terms series has a family meal scene. By the fourteenth episode, we lined up the meal shots from earlier episodes side by side and found that the courtyards, tables and people could easily start to look alike.
For End of Heat, the courtyard became a small white-walled one with flowers planted by the door; the characters were set as a family of four, with the father ladling porridge for the children, one child smiling and the other sipping with head bowed. What's on the table also follows the narration: “foods that nourish qi and blood” became a big bowl of red date, millet and lotus seed porridge with a few light home-style dishes.
Red date and millet porridge with a few side dishes, matching “foods that nourish qi and blood.”
The shot before it, “eating duck at End of Heat,” followed the same idea: a plate of braised duck, a cup of tea, a dish of dipping sauce and a pair of chopsticks, with a few yellow leaves on the table, so viewers know at a glance what is being eaten and in what season.
04
The cover poster uses this very stone bridge at sunset. We repainted the entire realistic final frame as a traditional Chinese gongbi painting: the karst peaks, stone bridge and rice fields stay in the same positions, so anyone who has seen the film recognizes it at once; the lines and colors take on a painted look, paired with a calligraphy title and the cover line “Eagles soar across the sky as the grain comes in; joyfully we watch a thousand waves of rice.”
We also made a motion version of the poster, with clouds drifting slowly and the light shifting with them, exported a GIF version, and made a 21:9 landscape banner.
This gongbi style carried forward too: for the next episode, White Dew, we made the entire short in gongbi with light color washes.
05
The solar terms films show things everyone knows: a squirrel, a rice field, a family meal. Precisely because they're familiar, viewers spot anything wrong at a glance.
For End of Heat, we checked these details one by one: the fruit has a name, the fields hold the crops of the season, and the dinner table doesn't repeat earlier episodes. The gongbi style tried out on the poster also gave the later episodes of the series a fresh look.
FAQ
First decide the name of everything in the frame, then write it into the prompt. In the first draft of End of Heat, the squirrel held a red fruit of unclear variety; we made it clearly an apple and redrew the red-and-yellow skin, the fine streaks and the stem.
Look up the crops in season and what the fields look like for each solar term. End of Heat falls in late August, when the fields should have nearly ripe crops, so in the stone bridge shot we replaced the empty flooded paddies with rice and turned the water, which field ridges had split into ponds, into one continuous river.
Line up similar shots from earlier episodes side by side, then redesign the courtyard, the characters and the dishes on the table. End of Heat used a small white-walled courtyard and a family of four, with red date, millet and lotus seed porridge and light side dishes chosen to match the narration.
Yes. For End of Heat, we repainted the stone bridge from the film as a gongbi painting for the cover poster, and also made a motion version with moving clouds and light, a GIF version and a 21:9 landscape banner, all delivered on August 21 together with the 4K vertical short.
Approach
We first turned the script into concrete scenes, spelling out what is in each frame and how it's arranged, then gathered real-world references for composition, landforms and lighting. The color of the rice fields, the autumn hues of the dawn redwoods and the look of the pomegranates were all checked item by item; local retouching kept the original lighting and composition so that fixing one spot didn't shift the whole image. The fruit in the squirrel's paws was drawn as an instantly recognizable apple, so viewers know what it's holding.
For the family meal in the courtyard, the number of people, their ages, clothing and interactions such as picking up food and ladling porridge were all set one by one. The finished film uses a family of four around the table to tell the food customs, with every gesture serving the everyday atmosphere and the colors of the setting and clothing kept soft and harmonious.
The poster was first converted from a selected realistic frame into a gongbi painting, then placed into the series poster template. At delivery we also organized the text layers, PSD files, fonts and banner layouts, and checked that the static and motion posters matched, so the promotional materials beyond the video kept a consistent style.
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