City & Tourism
A silver robot dog strings together subway streets, gardens and art spaces into a city adventure, and finally floats toward the Moon with balloons.
01 / Background
“A Robot Dog Tours Longgang” has an instantly recognizable robot dog show viewers around the city: it opens at the Twin Towers, passes through streets, the subway and cultural venues, and then colorful balloons in a garden lift it into flight. The locations keep changing but the lead never does, so the city introduction becomes one continuous journey.
The lead is a silver robot dog that walks, runs and looks around, and is itself a picture of Longgang's tech industry.
02 / Creative Highlights
Running down streets, passing through the subway, crossing plazas: the robot dog's silver figure keeps reappearing. Viewers' eyes stay on it, so the changing locations never feel confusing, and the tech theme comes across as light and friendly.
In the garden, colorful prints first appear at the robot dog's feet, then balloons lift it into the air. The realistic city and the fairy-tale flight are linked by the same character and the same bright colors, so the fantasy unfolds step by step.
Painted and real versions of arts buildings are joined with split-screen wipes, and old buildings turn from real footage into bold brushstrokes. The structures stay recognizable while the colors and textures change, so the art theme itself becomes the transition.
After the night fireworks, the balloons and robot dog appear against a bright full moon. The robot dog's cool gray contrasts with the balloons' vivid colors, and the city stroll ends as a fairy-tale journey into the distance.
03 / Scene Breakdown
At daybreak, the Galaxy Twin Towers light up in the middle of the city; then the robot dog wakes in an art studio full of easels, walks onto a street lined with red flowers, and the words “Shenzhen Longgang” appear.
An aerial shot of the city at dawn, with two side-by-side towers in the center and light breaking through behind them.
The Twin Towers fade out and an art studio dissolves in: among easels, paints and a rug, the silver robot dog lies down, about to get up.
A street sweeper truck drives between two rows of red flowers, the road wet and shining, with the large bilingual titles “SHENZHEN” and “LONGGANG,” in Chinese and English, on either side of the frame.
The robot dog walks along a freshly watered sidewalk, its body gleaming against the light as its four legs step forward one by one.
Its route is the viewer's tour: a Metro Line 4 platform, a crosswalk among commuters, the exhibition hall of the International Low Carbon City, the Golden Dragon Sculpture Plaza, then the Dafen Art Museum and Dafen Village.
The camera pushes forward through an elevated platform; the signs read Shenzhen Metro Line 4 as a red-and-white train pulls in.
From a low angle close to the ground, the robot dog crosses a crosswalk among a crowd of hurrying commuters, with glass office towers behind.
The triangular steel-frame facade reads “International Low Carbon City Low-Carbon Exhibition Hall” as the robot dog walks across the crosswalk in front.
The robot dog passes a golden dragon sculpture and the Dafen Art Museum, and finally stands at the “Welcome to Dafen Village” gate, hung with oil paintings of sunflowers and starry skies.
In the park, the robot dog strolls by a lotus pond, leaving blots of colorful paint on the grass where it steps; in the woods stands a bicycle tied with balloons, and the next moment, the balloons pull it into the sky.
Sunlight slants through the trees, with lotus flowers and koi in the foreground, as the robot dog walks slowly along the stone path by the pond.
The robot dog stands on the grass among colorful paint prints; then the scene cuts to sunlit woods, where a bicycle is tied all over with colorful balloons.
A bunch of balloons pulls the robot dog up the glass curtain wall of a high-rise, sunlight flashing on the glass.
In a blue sky with white clouds, the robot dog hangs from a dozen or so colorful balloons, its four legs dangling in midair as it drifts slowly away.
This section stops following the robot dog and lets Longgang's buildings switch back and forth between real footage and oil painting: cultural venues, an academy archway, a food street, and finally molten-iron fireworks and fireworks over a lake.
A glass-spired venue is split by a vertical line: on the left, swirling yellow-and-blue brushstrokes; on the right, the real scene at dusk, as the dividing line slowly moves.
Another venue is split diagonally: the oil-painting half hangs with red banners, while the real half shows a quiet plaza.
Looking up at the wooden archway of the “Twenty-Four Histories Academy,” red lanterns still hanging, the whole frame gradually turns into rich oil-paint colors.
An overhead shot of the food street at night, then the frame splits into panels: a plate of oysters, a plate of chicken, stuffed tofu and a pot of chicken soup.
On a wooden platform in the lake, sparks of molten iron burst into a ring of fire as the robot dog watches from the shore, followed by fireworks in the night sky.
The last section is just a full moon. Balloons drift into frame first, then the robot dog rises from below, pauses in front of the Moon and dissolves into points of light as it flies away.
A huge full moon in a deep blue night sky, as red, yellow, blue and purple balloons float up one by one from the bottom of the frame.
Hanging from the balloons, the robot dog rises from below and stops right in the middle of the Moon, its silver body and the full moon forming one silhouette.
The robot dog drifts to the right, trailing streaks of light as its body slowly breaks up into points of light, until only the Moon remains.
04 / Gallery
05 / Results
A roughly 1-minute-16-second landscape city adventure short, “A Robot Dog Tours Longgang,” one of the films in the Longgang city promotion series, using a robot dog to link streets, the subway, gardens and art spaces.
Case Study
The most common way to shoot a city promo is one landmark after another. This time, we handed the job of tour guide to a silver robot dog.
It sets off from beneath the Galaxy Twin Towers, rides the subway, crosses intersections and wanders Dafen Village, then a bunch of colorful balloons pulls it into the sky, and it finally flies away past a full moon.
This is our work for the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen: the seventh film in the Longgang series, running 1 minute 16 seconds.
01
In the earliest creative proposal, the lead was a little dog called “Pipi”: touring the city from a cute pet's point of view, light and pretty, the kind of guide anyone would follow.
When the project was formally approved, the lead became a quadruped robot dog that is distinctly Longgang. Like a puppy, it walks, runs and looks around, and viewers find it just as endearing; at the same time it embodies the city's tech industry, saying “Longgang has technology” without a single line of voiceover.
So that viewers would recognize Longgang at first sight, the opening shot was set at the Galaxy Twin Towers, and the cover also uses the Twin Towers as its background, overlaid with the stylized title “A Robot Dog Tours Longgang.”
Shot from a low angle close to the ground, the robot dog waits for the light and crosses the crosswalk like any pedestrian, as if it had always been part of the city.
02
The robot dog's route links more than a dozen places: Metro Line 4, the International Low Carbon City, the Dafen Art Museum, Dafen Village, a park lotus pond, the Twenty-Four Histories Academy, a food street and molten-iron fireworks by the lake. The locations keep changing, but viewers' eyes always follow the same silver figure, so it never gets confusing.
Dafen Village is a famous oil-painting village, so the second half of the film follows the thread of “oil painting”: for the venues and the academy, we made two versions of the same composition, one real and one in Van Gogh brushstrokes, then wiped between the two images with a vertical or diagonal line. The building is still the same building; only the colors and brushwork change.
The glass-spired venue is an oil painting on the left and the real scene at dusk on the right, as the dividing line slowly moves.
The imaginative part also had to build step by step: first colorful paw prints on the grass, then a bicycle covered with balloons, and only then do the balloons pull the robot dog into the sky. The ending keeps nothing but a full moon, letting it fly past and dissolve into points of light, so the city stroll closes on a fairy-tale image.
03
A city promo has many places to cover and easily turns into a list of landmarks. This film uses a character viewers are happy to follow, fitting transportation, industry, art, history and culture, and nightlife into a 76-second journey.
Choosing a robot dog as the lead lets the city's tech character appear on screen by itself; the oil-painting transitions inspired by Dafen Village turn a local artistic calling card into film language. Both come from Longgang itself, so the film feels light while everything it says is about what makes this city distinctive.
FAQ
Ideally, a character viewers want to follow who can also represent the city. In the proposal stage this film had a cute pet dog; the final version switched to a quadruped robot dog that is distinctly Longgang. It is as endearing as a pet and also a symbol of Longgang's tech industry, so one character both guides the tour and introduces the city.
This 1-minute-16-second film covers more than a dozen places: the Galaxy Twin Towers, a Metro Line 4 platform, the International Low Carbon City exhibition hall, the Golden Dragon Sculpture Plaza, the Dafen Art Museum, Dafen Village, a park lotus pond, a cultural venue, the Twenty-Four Histories Academy, a food street and molten-iron fireworks by the lake. Because the same robot dog leads the way throughout, viewers don't get lost no matter how many places there are.
“A Robot Dog Tours Longgang” was confirmed in late November 2025, and the first version was delivered in mid-December. After that, the opening was changed to the Galaxy Twin Towers, the cover was redone and the end card was trimmed to show only the presenter's logo, with the final version locked in late December.
Approach
The film lets one character connect location after location: running, walking, flying. Viewers follow its movements, and the city content unfolds around it step by step.
Transitions at arts venues keep the building's structure and change only the style: the same building in the same composition is joined in painted and real textures, with a split screen or camera move making the switch.
In terms of roles, the robot dog leads viewers forward, the arts venues change the style, and the balloons and full moon lift the imagination. Each handles one job, so the short holds many city experiences without getting messy.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
