The 24 Solar Terms
Watercolor autumn hues, golden fields and a family table portray the season when day and night are equal.
01 / Background
In a roughly 46-second vertical short, the Autumn Equinox episode covers day and night being equal, the autumn harvest and farm work, and everyday scenes of eating autumn greens and admiring the moon. The film moves from autumn mountains and rivers to golden rice fields, then to a waterside family's dinner table, and finally back to open fields and a gorge, going from nature to labor and then to daily life.
The images use the light touch of gongbi with soft color washes, the blue-green of the lake setting off the warm yellows of the woods and rice fields. Beyond the full short, the same theme was also made into a roughly 5-second motion poster, a vertical poster and a landscape banner for display in different places.
02 / Creative Highlights
Mountains, rivers, falling leaves and thin mist are all painted with soft brushwork, the cool water and warm woods setting each other off. Whether showing the season, farm work or a family gathering, the same art style runs throughout, so the whole film feels coherent.
A combine harvester moves through neat plots to show modern farming, then the film cuts to a farmer turning to stack rice sheaves. The wide shot shows how vast the fields are, and the close passage captures concrete physical work, so the harvest becomes more than a sweep of gold.
A family of four eats by the window, the warm tones of the people set against the blue moonlit night outside. The green dishes harmonize with the colors around them, and steam and reflections on the water stir gently; the warmth of everyday life comes through in these details.
The motion poster gathers the gorge, river, bridge and fruit into a single frame, with the solar term's name in calligraphy and the institution's logo appearing together. Though brief, it explains the theme on its own and clearly belongs with the main film.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The first three shots give the date and the solar term, then explain “day and night are equal.” The entire film is in gongbi with light washes, so it opens like a scroll of autumn landscape painting.
Blue-green peaks layer back to the horizon, a bay of deep blue lake lies at their foot, red and yellow leaves grow on the rocks close by, and pale pink clouds glow in the sky.
Looking down on a stream, the water winds around round stones, churning up white spray; a branch of golden leaves reaches in from the upper right, and a few leaves fall into the water.
Woods of red, yellow and green and a small white-walled house line the lakeshore, reflected exactly in the water, the frame split evenly between top and bottom, set to “At the Autumn Equinox, day and night are equal.”
For “It also means that autumn is half over; it is the most important solar term of autumn,” one shot shows mountain forests and the other ancient architecture.
White mist drifts slowly through the woods, the trees some yellow, some red, some still green, with a pale orange sky in the distance.
A great spray of golden ginkgo leaves hangs from the top of the frame above a gate tower with red walls and yellow tiles and its moat, the tower reflected in the water.
As the narration says “In the south, autumn truly begins only with this solar term, and farmers are busy with the autumn harvest, plowing and sowing,” the images cut from machine harvesting to one person working in the fields.
A red-and-white combine harvester moves forward through a golden rice field, leaving harvested rows behind it, with a village, grain trucks and green mountains in the distance.
A farmer in a straw hat and light blue shirt lifts a bundle of rice, turns and bends to set it down behind him, with a golden field beyond the wooden fence.
After the custom of eating autumn greens, for the closing line “Autumn is half gone, fertile fields gleam gold, and mountains and rivers, nourished by the season, show their abundance,” the images pull back from the dinner table to the fields and then to a river through a gorge, followed by the NDRC end card.
Outside the window are a full moon and waterside homes; inside, a family of four eats around a round table set with a big bowl of soup, a plate of red amaranth, a plate of stir-fried greens and lotus root.
Seen from above, ripe plots divided by field ridges into neat squares stretch all the way to a distant village, a bay and green mountains.
Fruit trees in the foreground are laden with golden citrus, steep gorge walls rise on both sides, a few boats move along the river, and a red arch bridge spans the mountains in the distance.
A roughly 5-second vertical motion poster that evokes the Autumn Equinox with a gorge, a river, a red arch bridge and citrus in the foreground, with the calligraphy title and cover line fixed on the frame.
Clouds drift across the sky and boats move slowly along the river, while the words “Autumn Equinox” and the line “Fertile fields spread gold as the autumn harvest arrives; the clear moonlight grows fuller, awaiting the full moon” stay on screen throughout.
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
The Autumn Equinox episode was broken into ten shots following the narration, each in gongbi with light color washes. They are listed below in the order of the finished film, alongside the final frames used in the film.
Shot 1.1
Blue-green peaks, deep blue lake water and red leaves close by.
Shot 1.2
An overhead view of a stream winding around round stones, with a branch of golden leaves reaching into the frame and bringing autumn up close.
Shot 1.3
Colorful woods and a small white-walled house reflected in the lake, symmetrical top and bottom, matching “day and night are equal.”
Shot 1.4
White mist drifting through woods of red, yellow and green, matching “autumn is half over.”
Shot 1.5
Based on the Gate of Divine Prowess of the Forbidden City: golden ginkgo hanging from above, with a red-walled, yellow-tiled gate tower and moat below.
Shot 2.1
A red-and-white combine harvester at work in a golden rice field, with a village and grain truck in the distance.
Shot 2.2
The farmer, in a plain light blue shirt, lifts a bundle of rice and turns to set it down: one quick, clean working motion.
Shot 3.1
Outside the window are a full moon and a water town; inside, a family of four in everyday casual clothes eats around the table, set with soup, red amaranth, lotus root and a plate of stir-fried greens.
Shot 4.1
Ripe plots divided by field ridges into neat squares stretch all the way to the bay and green mountains, matching “fertile fields gleam gold.”
Shot 4.2
Citrus fills the foreground, boats sail the river through the gorge, and a red arch bridge spans the distance, matching “mountains and rivers show their abundance.”
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
We completed a roughly 46-second main film for the Autumn Equinox and a roughly 5-second motion poster. The main film covers the season, the harvest and reunion, while the motion poster evokes the solar term with a single focused, clear image.
Case Study
At the Autumn Equinox, day and night are equally long, and autumn is halfway through.
This episode followed White Dew, with the entire film again in gongbi with light washes. With the style settled, the effort went into the details.
We made the Autumn Equinox episode for the 24 Solar Terms series: about 46 seconds, 10 shots, from autumn mountains by a lake to a river through a gorge, plus a 5-second motion poster.
01
Starting with White Dew, the solar terms films have been painted entirely in gongbi with light washes. The Autumn Equinox episode followed the same method: for each shot we first produced a realistic image to settle where the mountains are, how thick the mist is and what color the trees are, then repainted the whole image in gongbi.
For the line “day and night are equal,” we chose a mirror-like lake: the colorful woods and small white-walled house on the shore are reflected exactly in the water, the frame split evenly between top and bottom.
Half on the shore, half in the water, set to “At the Autumn Equinox, day and night are equal.”
02
For “farmers are busy with the autumn harvest, plowing and sowing,” we first showed a combine harvester, then a person: a farmer in a straw hat lifts a bundle of rice, turns and sets it down behind him.
In the first cut, this shot needed two fixes. First, the rice was held overhead too long and didn't look like real work; second, the fine stripes on the shirt flickered as soon as the image moved, like moiré on a screen. The final version shortened the lift so he turns and sets it down right away, and changed the shirt to a plain light blue with no stripes.
Lift the rice, turn, bend and set it down, all in one motion.
03
For “at this time, folk custom includes eating autumn greens and admiring the moon,” we put both into one frame: outside the window are a full moon and a water town; inside, a family of four eats around a round table set with soup, red amaranth, lotus root and a few home-style dishes.
Before delivery, a colleague checked the film once more from start to finish and noticed a basket of uncooked lettuce and mushrooms on the right side of the table, which made no sense on a dinner table. We replaced it with a plate of stir-fried greens. The first greens we swapped in were too vivid, brighter than everything around them, and obviously added later; only after toning them down did they blend into the gongbi painting as a whole.
The family's clothes changed too: the first draft had new Chinese-style garments with frog buttons; the final version switched to everyday casual wear such as shirts and sweaters, more like an ordinary family's meal today.
04
The Autumn Equinox comes close to the Mid-Autumn Festival, so our earliest closing lines all landed on “reunion” and “the full moon.” That felt too familiar, so we kept writing round after round, finally settling on “Autumn is half gone, fertile fields gleam gold, and mountains and rivers, nourished by the season, show their abundance.” A line about Mid-Autumn mooncakes was also cut, keeping the film focused on the autumn harvest and autumn greens.
The final two shots match this line exactly: “fertile fields gleam gold” goes to a grid of golden rice fields, and “mountains and rivers” to a river through a gorge, with citrus filling the foreground, boats on the river and a red arch bridge spanning the distance.
These two shots were also rechosen to fit the line. In the first draft, one was a sunrise over terraced fields and the other an old fisherman on the river at dawn: beautiful images that couldn't convey how vast the “fertile fields” are or how open the “mountains and rivers” are. The final version switched to grid-like rice fields stretching all the way to a bay, and a river gorge with boats and an arch bridge.
Fruit, river and boats, matching “mountains and rivers show their abundance.”
The cover poster also uses this gorge image, with the cover line “Fertile fields spread gold as the autumn harvest arrives; the clear moonlight grows fuller, awaiting the full moon.” We made five versions of the motion poster, chose one, then produced the GIF version, static poster and landscape banner.
05
By the Autumn Equinox, the series had reached its sixteenth episode, and its second in gongbi with light washes. Once the style is stable, viewers pick at the details: whether clothing flickers, whether the food on the table makes sense, whether something added later matches in color.
The Autumn Equinox episode fixed each of these spots, delivering a short that moves from landscapes, the harvest and the dinner table out to mountains and rivers, along with a motion poster that can be shared on its own.
FAQ
Fine, dense stripes tend to flicker when the image moves, looking like moiré on a screen. In the Autumn Equinox episode, the farmer originally wore a finely striped shirt; the final version changed it to a plain light blue shirt and regenerated the motion for that shot, and the problem went away.
After each edit, compare it with the surrounding colors and adjust again. In the Autumn Equinox episode we replaced a basket of lettuce on the dinner table with stir-fried greens; the first replacement was too vivid, so we lowered the saturation and delivered only once it matched the light washes of the whole gongbi painting.
The team writes several versions first, then picks one that doesn't repeat the episodes before and after. The Autumn Equinox ending avoided common phrases like “reunion” and “the full moon,” settling on “Autumn is half gone, fertile fields gleam gold, and mountains and rivers, nourished by the season, show their abundance”; the cover line is “Fertile fields spread gold as the autumn harvest arrives; the clear moonlight grows fuller, awaiting the full moon.”
We pick the image from the finished film that best represents the solar term and turn it into a roughly 5-second 4K vertical motion poster. For the Autumn Equinox we made five versions with the river gorge, chose one, then produced a GIF version, static poster and landscape banner, all delivered together with the short on September 21.
Approach
We first storyboarded in sections by landscape, farm work and customs, set the scenes against real-world references, then repainted everything in a unified gongbi style with light washes. Foreground branches, reflections on the water, mist in the woods and layers of distant mountains are clearly separated, and every scene shares the same clear, airy style.
The passages with people were checked separately for range of motion and fabric texture: the lifting of the rice was made short and crisp, and the clothes avoid fine, dense stripes so they don't flicker when moving. Every dish on the dinner table is as softly colored as its surroundings, blending into the painting as a whole.
In the edit, we tightened the content around the autumn harvest and folk customs while checking the images, the last line of voiceover and the subtitles. The long version tells the full story, while the short poster keeps only the theme, the landscape and the fruit; the video, GIF, static images and landscape banner were delivered separately.
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