City & Tourism
Following one woman's daily route, rooftop gardening, smart transportation and city energy come together as a gentle vision of future living.
01 / Background
“My Light, Low-Carbon Everyday” uses one person's day to imagine what a low-carbon city looks like once AI is part of daily life. The heroine, Xiaolin, sets out from a rooftop vegetable garden, boards a smart bus, passes public facilities, a waterway and an energy building, and finally returns to an everyday life full of sunlight and greenery.
The short had to link several technical concepts into one natural route through daily life. Realistic characters, bright daylight, blue-and-white vehicles and green spaces give the whole film a unified style and place city technology in scenes people can picture themselves using. At the end, the camera pulls back so all these facilities appear together in one panorama of a future city.
02 / Creative Highlights
White growing racks, ripe strawberries and morning light create an immediate sense of warmth. Picking a strawberry, taking a bite and a satisfied smile bring the low-carbon theme down to an ordinary morning; then, as the film moves into city travel, viewers have a heroine to follow.
Boarding, looking out the window, an overhead shot of the road and getting off form one complete route. A 3D-printed bench, waterway maintenance equipment and an energy building appear one after another along the commute, so the technologies line up in the order she passes them.
Inside a ring-shaped observation window, the flame slowly shifts from orange-red to blue, while the glass, light strips and the heroine's reflection make it feel like a real plant. The color change is a creative symbol that turns the abstract theme of “smart energy” into an image you can feel in a few seconds.
The film begins with rooftop strawberries and ends back with chatting colleagues, vegetables and irrigation mist. In the closing shot, the camera pulls back to put vertical farming, transport and the energy building into one city panorama, connecting one person's daily life to the workings of the whole city.
03 / Scene Breakdown
Morning light falls on the white growing racks on the roof, and Xiaolin picks a strawberry and takes a bite. The narration's first line is “In Longgang, a good day begins with living in harmony with nature.”
It opens on a close-up with no one in it: tier after tier of white growing troughs, strawberries hanging beneath the leaves, apartment buildings behind.
Xiaolin reaches out, picks a strawberry and pops it into her mouth with a satisfied smile, while a label in the corner of the screen marks this as rooftop vertical farming.
Xiaolin heads downstairs just in time to catch a white-and-blue smart bus. Outside the window are streets and a park, where a 3D printer is printing a bench on site.
She walks down the steps as a bus marked “AI Smart Transport” pulls up at the curb, and she steps right on, as the narration says “The city's traffic flows as smoothly as breathing.”
The camera moves in close on her profile inside the bus, while street trees and pedestrians slowly slide past the window.
In front of the Zero-Carbon Living Pavilion, a freshly printed white lattice bench sits beside a 3D printer as a few residents stand and watch.
In an overhead shot, the bus drives along the road beside the park, with the printer and bench on the roadside lawn.
Several underwater cleaning robots leave trails across a lake; Xiaolin gets off the bus, walks to the energy eco-park and watches through an observation window as a flame changes from orange-red to blue.
On a clear lake, several cleaning robots move forward trailing white wakes, with schools of fish visible below the surface, as the narration says “The city's veins are gently protected.”
Xiaolin steps off the bus, and the camera turns to an energy building with a red facade, its large exterior screen reading “AI Smart Energy Grid: Optimizing in Real Time.”
Flames churn inside the ring-shaped observation window, with Xiaolin's reflection on the glass; a few seconds later the flame slowly turns blue, and a caption explains that AI is optimizing the combustion process.
Xiaolin chats with a colleague in the rooftop vegetable garden as sprinkler mist drifts in the sunlight. Finally the camera pulls back, bringing the rooftop farm, the energy park, the bus and high-rises into one frame.
Xiaolin and a colleague wearing a staff badge chat and laugh beside the vegetable troughs as the sprinkler system sends out a cloud of mist, the city backlit behind them.
She walks down the rooftop steps as the camera pulls all the way back: rooftops full of vegetables, a domed greenhouse, the red energy park and the passing bus are all in frame, and the closing caption reads “Start your light, low-carbon everyday.”
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
In the order of the final film: each shot first describes what it shows, followed by the final image used in the film.
Shot 1.1
Morning light, white growing troughs and ripe strawberries, with no one in frame yet.
Shot 1.2
At the same growing rack, Xiaolin steps into frame and reaches out to pick one, leading into the shot of her tasting it.
Shot 2.1
Xiaolin walks down the steps just as the smart bus pulls in; the second image is the moment she boards.
Shot 2.2
A medium close-up inside the bus as she looks out at the bright street outside.
Shot 2.3
In front of the Living Pavilion at the Zero-Carbon Park, a 3D printer is printing a bench on site as residents gather to watch.
Shot 2.4
Shot from above and behind the bus, the road, the park and the printer in the corner form one continuous route.
Shot 3.1
Several cleaning robots leave trails across the lake, with buildings of the International Low Carbon City area on the shore.
Shot 3.2
Xiaolin steps down from the bus door, leading to the next stop.
Shot 3.3
Modeled on the red circular building of the Longgang Energy Eco-Park, with a large screen on the facade showing energy-efficiency data.
Shot 3.4
First Xiaolin stands in front of the ring-shaped observation window, then a close-up of the flame; in the video, the flame changes from orange-red to blue.
Shot 4.1
Xiaolin and a colleague stand beside the vegetable troughs as sprinkler mist spreads through the sunlight.
Shot 4.2
Xiaolin walks down the rooftop steps, with growing racks in the foreground and the energy park, a domed greenhouse and the bus in the distance.
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
The final film is a roughly 49-second creative short about a future city. Through one person's daily routine, it links rooftop farming, smart transport, public facilities and city energy into one continuous experience.
Case Study
Smart transport, 3D printing, underwater cleaning robots, smart energy... a low-carbon city comes with a long list of technical terms, and filming any one of them on its own looks like a product demo.
So we told it a different way: a young woman named Xiaolin goes about an ordinary day, and these technologies appear in the places she passes.
This is our work for the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen, the third film in the Longgang series: 49 seconds that begin with picking strawberries on a rooftop and end with a panorama of an entire green city.
01
In May 2025, we submitted a batch of green, low-carbon creative proposals and samples to Longgang District, and the client's feedback was clear: they wanted some story, not a pure promotional film.
So this film doesn't start with technology but with a morning: Xiaolin picks a strawberry from the growing rack on her rooftop, takes a bite and smiles. Viewers get to know a person first, so the facilities that follow have someone to use them.
The film's first action is also its most everyday one: growing strawberries on a rooftop is the easiest way to picture low-carbon living.
02
The script follows the route of a single day: rooftop → bus → park → waterway → energy park → back to the rooftop. Each technology follows one of her actions or glances: she boards the bus, and the bus is smart; she looks out the window, and a bench is being printed in the park; she gets off, and the energy park's big screen is in front of her.
We set the locations in Longgang wherever possible. In the first version, the bench-printing shot was set in an ordinary park; we later changed the background to the Living Pavilion at the Zero-Carbon Park, so anyone who has been there knows the place at a glance.
03
For the energy section, we referenced the Longgang Energy Eco-Park: a red facade, a circular roof and a ring of processing facilities alongside. The first version was an ordinary white factory building; after switching to the eco-park's shape, we added a large facade screen reading “AI Smart Energy Grid: Optimizing in Real Time” with live, changing data.
We used the same approach for the waterway shot: the lake crossed by cleaning robots has buildings of the International Low Carbon City area on its shore.
04
“AI-optimized combustion” is hard to film, so we turned it into a change of color: Xiaolin stands at a ring-shaped observation window as the flame inside slowly shifts from orange-red to a clean blue. A blue flame means more complete combustion and lower emissions, so viewers don't need to understand the science to see within seconds that “it got better.”
Xiaolin's reflection shows on the glass as the flame in the window slowly turns blue, and a caption explains that AI is optimizing the combustion process.
After the energy section, the film returns to the rooftop vegetable garden: sprinkler mist and chatting colleagues, and finally the camera pulls back to bring the rooftop farm, energy park and bus into one frame, connecting back to the strawberry at the start.
05
In 49 seconds, the film covers five things: rooftop farming, smart transport, 3D printing, water management and smart energy, yet it looks like just one young woman's day. Because the technology follows a person and the locations are in Longgang, the abstract idea of a “low-carbon city” becomes a place viewers can imagine living in.
FAQ
Find one person and lay out one route. This film follows Xiaolin through an ordinary day, with each technology appearing after one of her actions; the hard-to-film “AI-optimized combustion” is shown as a flame turning from orange-red to blue, which anyone understands in a few seconds.
The locations are based on real places in Longgang: the Living Pavilion at the Zero-Carbon Park, the buildings of the International Low Carbon City area and the shape of the Longgang Energy Eco-Park all match. The 3D-printed bench, underwater cleaning robots and energy screen are visions of future life created according to the script.
Xiaolin's short hair, light-colored top and pinafore dress were fixed for every shot. Character and scene storyboards were generated image by image and checked before generating video, so from the rooftop to the bus to the energy park, viewers always see the same person.
Approach
The script divides the story into sections: morning gardening, a seamless commute, creation on a street corner, waterway maintenance, building energy and a closing picture of harmony. Each technology theme is introduced by one of the heroine's actions or glances, so even with many scenes, the film reads in the order of a single day.
During image generation, the heroine's hairstyle, light-colored top and pinafore dress stayed consistent, while daylight, greenery and blue-and-white facilities ran through every scene. Wide shots show where the public facilities are, and close shots of the heroine and the observation window put viewers right in the scene.
In post-production, the changing flame color, sprinkler mist and the pull-back over the city build the emotion layer by layer.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
