Culture & Arts
Over a cup of tea, a book and a Torch Dragon, a young scholar finds in history the strength to keep moving forward.
01 / Background
“The Torch Dragon Tea Gathering” is set in the Twenty-Four Histories Academy, where the Shiji Pavilion, Huaxi Mountain Lodge and the Thousand-Lantern Corridor are all drawn as recognizable animated scenes. A young scholar, A Ming, reads late into the night looking for answers; the scent of tea, turning pages and candlelight appear one after another, leading into a journey to meet history.
In the remastered version, the Torch Dragon emerges from a candle, and Sima Qian writes in prison, as history records. The film moves from the academy at night into a conversation between characters, then back to the tea gathering and the lantern light, with the question “How is history remembered?” running throughout.
02 / Creative Highlights
An owl flies from a branch toward the academy as moonlight, water and lantern light appear in turn. Outside is quiet, inside is warm; then the camera settles on a teacup, book pages and a candlestick, so the fantasy begins from a concrete scene of late-night reading.
The flame stretches into a golden dragon outline, then becomes a three-dimensional Torch Dragon. Its entrance unfolds step by step through changes in brightness, shape and movement; in the later sequence of swirling pages, the candlestick stays in its original place, so viewers can follow how the character enters another time.
Sima Qian bends over his writing in prison while A Ming, translucent, watches and asks questions beside him; the brush and turning pages pick up the earlier act of reading. The theme moves forward through dialogue and hand movements; back at the academy, A Ming's manner as he reads and recites with everyone has changed, linking this encounter with history to the real-life tea gathering.
The outline of the Shiji Pavilion, the layout of the bridge and corridors, and the Thousand-Lantern Corridor let viewers recognize the place. No modern fixtures are left in frame, the railings are drawn from the real site, and the lanterns hang at a uniform height; these details make the images both animated and true to the real academy, and keep the backgrounds from jumping between shots.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The opening is one continuous long take: an owl takes off from a treetop, glides over the academy archway, courtyard and water, and finally lands on the eaves of a pavilion, as the camera pushes on into a lit window.
Under a full moon, the owl perches on a branch with its back to the camera, above the academy archway lit with lanterns. It spreads its wings and flies off, taking viewers' eyes into the academy with it.
The owl flies low over the bluestone courtyard as pavilions, corridors and water unfold layer by layer, laying out the academy in a single shot.
The owl alights on the eaves of a pavilion as a thin mist rises from the water. The camera pushes from the wide shot all the way into a round window, where someone is reading.
A young scholar, A Ming, sits among piles of books reading the “Records of the Grand Historian” but can't find his answer; he sighs and pours himself a cup of tea. The steam drifts to the candlestick on the wall, and the candle flame turns into a Torch Dragon.
A Ming sits cross-legged at a low table leafing through a book, surrounded by stacks of histories. Partway through, he puts the book down, leans back and sighs.
He lifts the teapot and pours slowly, with his muttering in the subtitle: I've read through all of history, yet I still can't find my own way.
A Ming lowers his head to drink, and instead of dispersing, the steam from his cup curls and winds toward the candle on the wall.
Touched by the steam, the flame stretches into a golden dragon outline, then slowly grows horns and whiskers. Viewers see exactly where the Torch Dragon comes from.
Fully formed, the Torch Dragon coils on the rafters and breathes out a golden mist, in which rows of history book titles float all the way to above A Ming's head.
The Torch Dragon says, “Why not go and see for yourself how history is remembered?” Pages swirl around A Ming, and the picture turns into a large open book.
Holding his teacup, A Ming looks up as pages and golden light whirl around him. He turns to look, and the room is already filled with light.
The camera drops low over an open history book whose pages lift one by one, with the Torch Dragon watching from the rafters in the distance, and the scene shifts to the era inside the book.
A Ming arrives in a Han dynasty prison cell. Sima Qian sits on a straw mat, writing on bamboo slips by the light from a high window. A Ming stands beside him, translucent, and asks why he still carries on.
Iron bars, stone walls, a slanting beam of light. Sima Qian bends his head and writes stroke by stroke, with his words in the subtitle: The historical record must not be abandoned.
A Ming appears in the cell, his body translucent, showing that he has only come to witness history. He watches Sima Qian with confusion and sorrow on his face.
Sima Qian stops writing and looks up, speaking of how King Wen, Confucius and Qu Yuan wrote their works in adversity. The lines come straight from the original text of the “Letter to Ren An.”
After Sima Qian says, “I recount past events, thinking of those yet to come,” a writing brush floats through the air to A Ming's hand. He reaches out and catches it, as if receiving something handed down.
The moment he grips the brush, a golden vortex whirls up around him, the cell is swallowed by light, and A Ming returns to the present.
A Ming returns to his study, and when he reads the “Records of the Grand Historian” again, his expression has changed. The scene moves to the academy's tea gathering, where everyone sits together reciting famous lines from the “Records of the Grand Historian”; finally, the Torch Dragon's light flies out of a lantern and lights up the whole academy.
The same moon hangs outside the window as A Ming holds the “Records of the Grand Historian” and his teacup, reading aloud word by word, the worried look from the beginning gone from his face.
Looking down from a round caisson ceiling, the academy's open-air tea gathering is full of people. As the camera descends, everyone reads together: “Those who rely on virtue prosper; those who rely on force perish.”
A row of red lanterns hangs along the corridor; the camera pushes in on one, and the golden silhouette of a small dragon slowly appears on its paper.
The Torch Dragon becomes a streak of golden light that skims the water and flies into the pavilions in the night, and the lights of the whole academy come on, one section after another.
The second video at the top of the page is the early version from December 2025, which visited more historical scenes: Sima Qian writing in his study, A Ming going on to the Feast at Hongmen, and then following Confucius and his disciples on the road in the rain.
A Ming stands to one side of the banquet, watching Xiang Yu raise his cup in the seat of honor with an advisor beside him: a Chu–Han scene from the early version.
Confucius and his disciples hurry along in the rain, with A Ming following behind under a paper umbrella.
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
In the order of the remastered film, showing the final frame used for each shot. The closing tea gathering and Thousand-Lantern Corridor have no separate final frames, so they aren't included here.
Shot 1.1
A full moon, branches and an owl with its back to the camera, above the lit academy archway: the starting point of the long take.
Shot 1.2
The owl spreads its wings and flies over the archway and courtyard, with the camera following from behind.
Shot 1.3
The owl flies low over the water, with pavilions and corridors reflected in it, setting up the next shot that pushes into the window.
Shot 2.1
A Ming sits among piles of books reading the “Records of the Grand Historian”, leaning back when he can't go on. The candlestick on the wall is right by the window, where the Torch Dragon will later emerge.
Shot 2.2
Close-up: A Ming drinks from his cup as the steam drifts toward the right of the frame, leading into the next shot of the candlestick.
Shot 2.3
A close-up of the candlestick on the wall: a wisp of smoke drifts toward the candlelight, and the flame then turns into a dragon.
Shot 2.4
The Torch Dragon opens its eyes wide and breathes out a golden mist dotted with specks of light.
Shot 3.1
A Han dynasty prison cell, where a beam of light falls from a high window as Sima Qian sits on a straw mat writing on bamboo slips.
Shot 3.2
A Ming watches Sima Qian write from behind.
Shot 3.3
A Ming stands in the same cell, his figure translucent, his expression shifting from puzzlement to being moved.
Shot 3.4
A Ming catches the brush as bamboo slips and golden light spin around him; the second image shows only the golden vortex, from which the picture returns to the present.
05 / Script Excerpts
06 / Results
The project has two versions: the early version completed in December 2025 (2 minutes 50 seconds) and the 2026 remastered version (2 minutes 22 seconds). The remaster cuts side plots such as the Feast at Hongmen and the journey in the rain, centers on Sima Qian in prison, and ends at the academy's tea gathering with everyone reciting famous lines from the “Records of the Grand Historian”, linking the perseverance of historical figures with a young scholar's exchanges in the present.
Case Study
Longgang has a Twenty-Four Histories Academy, where the Wenxian Hall, the Shiji Pavilion and the Thousand-Lantern Corridor all have ties to the classic histories.
How do you get people who've never been there interested in it? Instead of filming a guided tour, we invented a guardian spirit of the books for the academy: a Torch Dragon that wakes from a candle flame.
This is our work for the Publicity Department of the CPC Longgang District Committee, Shenzhen: the tenth film in the Longgang series, in 3D animation style, with a 2-minute-22-second remastered version: a young man lost in his history reading is taken by the Torch Dragon to meet Sima Qian in prison.
01
The overall brief for this Longgang series was to show the “fun” side of the city. When it came to the Twenty-Four Histories Academy, the challenge was that the academy itself is quiet: pavilions, bookshelves and lanterns, however beautifully filmed, are still just scenery.
We designed a “guardian spirit of the books” for the academy: the Torch Dragon. In our backstory, it was born when the academy was built, from the cultural lineage of the Twenty-Four Histories together with people's wish today to trace their roots, and it usually sleeps on the beams of the Wenxian Hall. Then came a lead: A Ming, a young scholar lost in his history reading. The story is one night of reading: A Ming can't find his answer, and the Torch Dragon takes him into the history books to see for himself.
02
The story is fictional, but the place had to be real. We used photos of the academy as reference: the timber structure of the archway, the three-story octagonal Shiji Pavilion, the two-story corridor connected to it and the plaques upstairs were all drawn into the animation as they are.
The real site had many things that didn't belong in the story: the turnstiles and crowds at the entrance, the glass railings along the corridor. When generating, the descriptions specified replacing them with a bluestone plaza and wooden railings, and the chosen images were then retouched by hand to clean out any modern elements that slipped through.
The remastered opening became one long take, following an owl from the archway to the waterside to establish what the academy looks like first.
03
In the early version, the Torch Dragon simply appeared on the rafters and looked rather cute. In the remake, we wanted its entrance to have a reason, so we added a candlestick on the wall beside A Ming's desk, fixed by the window from the very first interior shot.
This gave us a chain of actions: A Ming pours tea → the steam drifts toward the candlestick → the flame turns into a golden dragon shape → it grows horns and whiskers and becomes a complete Torch Dragon. The Torch Dragon's look was also made older and more majestic, befitting a guardian of the memory of the histories.
The flame stretches into a dragon outline, then grows horns and whiskers.
04
In the early version, Sima Qian wrote in a study, and then A Ming went on to watch the Feast at Hongmen and Confucius traveling in the rain; with several historical episodes in a row, each could only last a moment.
In the remake, we kept only Sima Qian's scene and, following the historical record, moved it to prison: a narrow beam of light falls from a high window as he sits on a straw mat writing on bamboo slips. A Ming is made translucent and stands beside him, so viewers know at once that he is “someone who has come to witness history.”
We also stopped writing our own lines and used the original text of the “Letter to Ren An” directly: “King Wen, imprisoned, expounded the Book of Changes; Confucius, in hardship, wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals; Qu Yuan, in exile, composed Encountering Sorrow…” A single passage answers “why carry on.”
In the early version, Sima Qian writes at a desk in his study; the remaster moved him to prison.
05
The early version ended with A Ming sharing his reflections at the tea gathering. In the remake, we cut that speech and replaced it with everyone at the gathering reciting two lines from the “Records of the Grand Historian”: “Those who rely on virtue prosper; those who rely on force perish. There is no single way to govern the world; to benefit the state, one need not imitate antiquity.”
After the reading, no more dialogue is added; the images take over: the camera pushes in on a lantern in the corridor, the shadow of a small dragon appears on its paper and turns into a streak of golden light that flies over the water, and the lights of the whole academy come on, one section after another. Because the lanterns' height and position were unified from the start, the push-in shot could stay steady.
The Torch Dragon's light flies into the pavilions, and the academy's lights come on.
06
For city promotion, a quiet cultural venue is hard to bring to life with scenic footage alone. “The Torch Dragon Tea Gathering” gives the venue a character and a story: viewers remember the Torch Dragon that woke from a candle flame, and along the way remember what the Shiji Pavilion and the Thousand-Lantern Corridor look like.
For fellow AI animators and students, what's worth studying in this project is the “revision”: with the same story, the second version cut most of the side plots, made the setting more historically accurate and replaced our own lines with the original classic, shrinking the film from 2 minutes 50 seconds to 2 minutes 22 seconds while making it feel more complete.
FAQ
Yes. This film used photos of the Twenty-Four Histories Academy as reference, animating the archway, the three-story octagonal Shiji Pavilion, the two-story corridor and the plaques with their original structure; modern elements such as turnstiles, crowds and glass railings were replaced during generation, then each image was retouched by hand.
First lock down a turnaround character sheet for the lead, A Ming, and use it as the reference for every shot that follows. Shots that need special effects (like the translucent A Ming in the cell) were edited on the same image, without changing the character or the shot size; shots with big movements used upright, steady poses as much as possible to keep his expression and face shape from drifting.
The early version runs 2 minutes 50 seconds, with A Ming witnessing Sima Qian writing, the Feast at Hongmen and Confucius traveling in the rain in turn. The 2-minute-22-second remaster keeps only Sima Qian's scene and moves it to prison, adds the owl's opening long take and the candlestick turning into a dragon, and changes the ending to everyone at the tea gathering reciting original lines from the “Records of the Grand Historian”.
Planning began in late November 2025, and the early version was completed in mid-December; the remake began in late December, the remastered film was out in early January 2026, and the final version was delivered in April after the academy's plaques were corrected.
Approach
Use the real buildings as reference first, then turn them into animation. The Shiji Pavilion, bridge corridors and lanterns all keep their recognizable outlines; no turnstiles, passersby or other modern elements remain in frame, and railings, hands and fine details were all corrected to match reality, so viewers can match the story to this academy.
The plot is threaded together by a teacup, a candlestick, book pages and a brush. The props' positions were fixed first, then the candle flame becoming a dragon, swirling pages and characters writing serve as transitions, so every fantastical change has a clear cause.
For shots to cut together smoothly, characters' poses and backgrounds have to match from shot to shot. Running poses, character consistency and the lanterns' arrangement were aligned one by one; for the ending, the lanterns' height and position were unified in advance, so the backgrounds stay steady across the shots of pushing in on a lantern, the light flying out and the buildings lighting up.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
