Culture & ArtsAI visuals support
From a single medical visit to a hillside of apricot trees, healing, repayment and honest trade form a storyline you can see.
01 / Background
Liandan AI Studio provided AI visuals for “The Tiger Guards the Apricot Grove” in CCTV's “Exploring China Through Idioms.” The story follows Dong Feng practicing medicine, patients planting apricot trees, apricots traded for grain to help the poor, and tigers guarding the grove. The creative focus was helping viewers grasp, in about a minute, how each of these events leads to the next.
The script breaks the story into concrete shots: reviving Shi Xie, treating patients, planting trees together, a wide view of the blossoming grove, picking fruit and the market. In the middle, Dong Feng carries grain into a crowd, so the grove is both a repayment for healing and a resource for helping the poor; the shots of a tiger chasing a man and then lying at rest lead into the ending about fair trade.
02 / Creative Highlights
Sorting herbs, spoon-feeding medicine at a bedside and walking through the courtyard show, in turn, who the characters are and where the story turns. The clinic then cuts to tree planting, so the agreement to “repay with apricot trees” becomes a picture instead of an explanation.
After a few people bend down to plant, butterflies, apricot blossoms and continuous hillside forest open the frame up step by step. Blossoming, fruiting and sunset convey the passing of time: viewers first see individual actions, then the hillside grove built up over many years.
Picking apricots from the branches cuts to Dong Feng handing out grain to a crowd, making the grove's purpose clear. Trading apricots for grain to help the poor links the healing before it with the market after it, so the beautiful grove is no longer just scenery but the key that drives the story.
A tiger walks out from among the apricot trees, then chases a running man, and later lies quietly in the grove. Motion and stillness turn the story's rule of trade into visible behavior; the ending returns to the busy market to show how people and the grove relate.
03 / Scene Breakdown
First comes Dong Feng's medical skill: Shi Xie, governor of Jiaozhi, had been dead for three days, and Dong Feng brought him back with a single pill.
A white-bearded healer looks down at a handful of herbs as the narration introduces him as a physician of the Three Kingdoms period.
In a dim room, Shi Xie lies on a couch surrounded by his family. The fading light tells us he has stopped breathing.
Dong Feng leans in toward the patient, a pill between his fingers. The camera stays close, so all of the viewer's attention is on this one action.
Shi Xie walks through a crowd in official robes, then the film cuts to Dong Feng leaning on a staff among apricot blossoms as the narration names the idiom “Dong Feng Revives Shi Xie.”
Dong Feng lived at the foot of Mount Lu and treated people without charge; those he cured planted apricot trees according to how serious their illness had been.
A thatched roof covered in apricot blossoms cuts to Dong Feng treating a patient inside.
Three people bend over on a hillside, banking soil around a newly planted sapling between them.
Next, one person crouches and presses down the soil around a sapling with both hands. A group and a single person match the narration's “five trees” and “one tree.”
Years later, the apricot trees had grown into a grove; when the apricots ripened, Dong Feng traded them for grain and gave it to the poor.
First a butterfly lands on a flowering branch, then the camera pulls back to a wide shot: a pink apricot grove at the foot of the mountain stretches to the horizon.
At sunset, the whole grove turns red, matching the narration: “when the apricots ripen, the grove is a sea of red.”
A hand picks an apricot from a branch; in the next shot, Dong Feng holds a basket of grain among the villagers.
A few tigers guard the apricot grove: anyone who takes too many apricots gets chased, while those who trade fairly are left in peace.
A tiger walks out from among fruit-laden apricot trees, the ground covered in fallen apricots and warm light streaming from behind the trees.
A man runs forward clutching apricots, two tigers close behind, and the camera charges ahead with him.
Under the same apricot trees, a tiger lies quietly. One chasing, one resting: together they show that “trade fairly and all is well.”
The story lands on a lively market: from then on, trade below Mount Lu was entirely fair.
An overhead shot of the market's rows of rooftops and crowded streets. The story of the grove returns to everyday buying and selling.
04 / Gallery
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
The AI visuals in this piece were used in a segment of CCTV's “Exploring China Through Idioms.” The one-minute story moves from treating patients to the apricot grove and the market, using the characters' actions, sweeping mountain forests and the tigers' behavior to convey the benevolence and integrity in the Dong Feng allusion.
Case Study
A doctor treated patients for free.
Once cured, they planted a few apricot trees at the foot of the mountain.
Years later, the trees had grown into a grove, and tigers had moved in.
This is a one-minute short from a scenario question on CCTV's “Exploring China Through Idioms.” Dong Feng's story contains several idioms and allusions, and the visuals had to let viewers follow it one part at a time.
01
The production team had no ready-made script for this episode, so we first organized the Dong Feng allusion into one complete story: first “Dong Feng Revives Shi Xie,” then free treatment, the apricot grove, trading for grain to help the poor, and finally the tigers guarding the grove.
We broke the finished story into 17 lines of narration, one image for each line. For example, “Those cured of serious illness plant five apricot trees; those with mild illness plant one” became two shots: three people banking soil around one tree, then one person crouching to plant a sapling. Viewers don't need to count trees; the number of people tells them which is which.
A group planting a tree cuts to one person planting, matching the narration's “five trees for a serious illness, one for a mild one.”
As with the rest of the series, the narration uses the same voice; subtitles have no punctuation and no more than 13 characters per screen, so experts can check them against the picture line by line.
02
“Within a few years, there were more than 100,000 apricot trees” is a single sentence, but the picture has to make it believable. We start with a butterfly on a flowering branch, then pull straight back to a wide shot: the grove at the foot of the mountain stretches to the horizon. Then the sky turns to sunset and the whole grove shifts from pink to red, matching “a sea of red.”
A close-up branch pulls back to a distant mountain forest: years of growth told in a single change of shot size.
Once the grove has grown, the rest can follow: picked apricots become grain, Dong Feng carries the grain to the villagers; when someone takes too many apricots, a tiger gives chase; when people follow the rules, the tiger in the same grove lies quietly.One chasing, one resting: the rule needs no explanation, and viewers understand it on their own.
A tiger chases a man who took too many apricots; in the next shot, it lies quietly under the apricot trees.
03
“The Tiger Guards the Apricot Grove” is one of nine AI story films we made for CCTV's “Exploring China Through Idioms,” and it aired on CCTV-1 alongside others in the series such as “Hanging the Gourd to Heal the World” and “Nüwa Mends the Sky.”
The challenge here wasn't any one big scene but the fact that a single allusion contains several events. Our approach was to straighten out the text first, then give every line of narration a visible action: feeding medicine, planting trees, picking apricots, delivering grain, chasing, lying at rest. By following the actions, viewers can take in the whole one-minute story. Films with many events over a long time span, such as company histories and brand stories, can be broken down the same way.
FAQ
Yes. The production team gave us no script for this allusion, so we first wrote Dong Feng's story up as one complete text, broke it into 17 lines of narration with one shot per line, then created images and generated video line by line.
With changes in shot size instead of numbers. This film first shows a butterfly on a flowering branch, then pulls back to an endless apricot grove at the foot of the mountain, then lets the sunset turn the whole grove red to show the apricots ripening. What viewers see is the change from one branch to a whole mountain.
Yes. The tiger appears in three shots in this film: walking out of the grove, chasing a man running with apricots, and lying quietly under a tree. In the chase, the camera charges forward with the man; in the resting shot, the pace slows down. Contrasting the two states makes the story's rule clear.
Approach
We first broke the allusion into a chain of actions: treating patients introduces the characters, planting apricots shows the repayment, the blossoming hillside shows accumulation, trading for grain shows charity, and the tigers and the market show the rule of trade. Every section tells its content through action, with narration and picture complementing each other.
The healer's look, the period costumes, the thatched hall and the natural setting share one consistent visual style; blossoms, fruit and tigers are tied together by warm light, while interior close-ups, medium shots of characters and wide shots of the mountain forest set the rhythm, giving the one minute both light and weighty moments.
Treating patients, planting apricots and trading for grain unfold step by step through the characters' actions, and the grain-giving scene in the middle turns repayment and charity into visible action. The relationship between the healer and the villagers runs through the whole story.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
