A scientific Chinese New Year | Spring Festival Gala + Technology! Come and watch the Spring Festival Galas in various places and listen to the "gluttonous feast"

Dragons soar and tigers leap, auspicious stars shine, and good fortune welcomes the spring and the New Year. As the Spring Festival approaches, Beijing Science and Technology News has carefully planned and launched a series of articles with the theme of "Celebrating the New Year with Science" from February 9 (New Year's Eve) to February 17 (the eighth day of the first lunar month), making this Spring Festival holiday full of "science and technology".

Written by reporter Duan Dawei Edited by Chen Yongjie

New Media Editor/Lai Tianying Art Editor/Ji Zhen

Every year, the Spring Festival Gala stage presents diverse content.

All of these are driving the development of media technology.

With the development of innovative technologies,

The ways of disseminating the Spring Festival Gala are becoming increasingly diverse.

Let's take a look at the Spring Festival Galas in various places

What are the unique technological features?

- CCTV Spring Festival Gala -

In the name of literature and art, it is a perfect combination

The land of China is full of spring, and thousands of homes are lit up. On the eve of February 9, the 2024 Spring Festival Gala (hereinafter referred to as the "CCTV Spring Festival Gala") carefully prepared by China Media Group has been fully optimized for three types of terminals: television, public large screens, and mobile phones, achieving ultra-high-definition exquisite production, bringing an immersive and refreshing audio-visual feast to Chinese people around the world, and presenting a wonderful and technological Spring Festival Gala "New Year's Eve dinner".

At the main venue in Beijing

A galloping dragon

Infuse the stage with a sense of technology and power

At the Xi'an branch in Shaanxi

"Li Bai" and the audience sang "Song of the Wine"

Recreate the magnificent scene of Chang'an filled with poetry

Li Bai's movements are realistic and his behavior is smooth

Behind this is Yuanke Vision's use

FZMotion optical motion capture system

For mobile AR scenes

Animation performance of "Li Bai"

Provides stable and accurate motion data support

Song "Healthy Order"

Zhou Shen and the virtual giant panda

Dance together and practice Ba Duan Jin

XR+VP "Virtual and Real Integration"
With the continuous breakthroughs in science and technology, virtual production (VP), extended reality (XR), artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) have gradually transformed from fantasy technologies into real-life applications. In the 2024 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, these four cutting-edge technologies are perfectly integrated to bring the audience an unprecedented immersive audio-visual feast.

The creative New Year custom show "Unique" made netizens say that the more they watched, the more they ate! This show was directed by Zhang Yimou. Not only did it incorporate local specialties of noodles into the lyrics, but the dancers also used their bodies to pose in various shapes of noodles, and through interaction and projection technology, people and noodles complemented each other.

Liu Huizi, director and leader of the dance group of CCTV's 2024 Spring Festival Gala, revealed that this is the program with the greatest comprehensive technical difficulty in all the history of the Spring Festival Gala. The picture on the big screen is three layers of superposition. The first layer is the stage, the second layer is the dancers superimposed on it, and the third layer is special effects, so it is very difficult in real time.

The creative show "Nianjin" was inspired by the auspicious patterns in ancient China, and cleverly used technology to present an ancient "fashion show" that seemed like the characters in the painting walked into reality. The station cleverly combined songs with virtual synthesis technology, giving new vitality to cultural elements that spanned thousands of years, and the unique charm of oriental aesthetics shone throughout the show.

This year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala innovatively introduced the VP film production model and built an XR+VP virtual-real fusion ultra-high-definition production system. The system uses new shooting techniques such as dynamic storyboard preview and virtual-real light and shadow linkage to show the audience a beautiful and lifelike space where virtual and real are blended. At the same time, we deployed an immersive stage interaction system in the studio for the first time, and used the free-viewing ultra-high-definition shooting system to capture the actors' dynamics in all directions, and then used AI production and AR real-time rendering to bring the audience an immersive visual enjoyment of the integration of people and scenery.

The mechanical arm twirling a handkerchief and the excavator making a heart shape are full of industrial style . The Shenyang venue is full of "industrial style". It is understood that this stage is built in the old workshop of the Shenyang China Industrial Museum. At the beginning of the show, there was a mechanical arm twirling a handkerchief, integrating technology with traditional culture. It is understood that the equipment originally used to detect machine tools is now used to calibrate the parallelism and verticality of the stage.

In Bao Shi Laojiu's performance, the front of the drums played by the dancers and the stage background are full of chip elements.

There was also a group of drones taking off from Hunhe River, with shapes changing from snowflakes to airplanes.

The Changsha branch venue was also full of mechanical sense. In the picture, Zoomlion Smart Industrial City in Changsha, with the help of 5G+ industrial Internet of Things, AI and other advanced technologies, can roll off an excavator every 6 minutes, build a truck crane every 17 minutes, and make a concrete pump truck every 27 minutes.

The combination of scientific and technological power and industrial elements allows us to see the rapid speed of industrial development in our country today.
"Core elements" are eye-catching, and drone formations reappear

On the stage of "Winter Warmth" at the Shenyang branch venue in Liaoning, the stage style designed with "chip" elements became the most eye-catching "eye-catching package". The most complex "black technology" in the technology industry, chip semiconductors, was perfectly integrated into the stage effect, which is highly consistent with the current mainstream voice in China to vigorously support chip semiconductors.

At the same time, hundreds of drones began flying in the night sky outside the stage, sometimes forming a giant piano being played, and sometimes forming a group of fighter jets flying across the sky.

Multi-screen communication "panoramic companionship"
In order to meet the diverse viewing needs of global audiences, CCTV launched the "CCTV Video TV" service during the Dragon Year Spring Festival Gala. Through this innovative measure, global users can watch ultra-high-definition Spring Festival Gala videos more conveniently and enjoy the sound quality experience of 3D Elite Sound.

In the segment of the cross-border netizens' interactive song "Sharing", netizens from all over the world danced the "Dragon Year Theme Dance" on their screens, spreading the lively and jubilant Chinese New Year atmosphere to all parts of the world. At the same time, more than 3,000 "overseas thousands of screens" in 49 countries and 90 cities around the world were also broadcasting and promoting the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, allowing more people to share the joy and happiness of the Chinese Spring Festival.

- Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala -

Integration of history, culture and technology

Beijing is a powerful witness to the prominence of Chinese civilization, with a profound historical heritage and rich cultural resources. "Capital feeling", "cultural feeling" and "Beijing flavor" have always been the background of Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala. This year, Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala will render this background even more strongly.

In the stage design of the Spring Festival Gala, the idea of ​​creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture is fully implemented, and the romance of oriental aesthetics and the unique oriental charm are perfectly integrated to fully display the poetic China. "Don't listen to the sound of leaves being blown by the wind in the forest, a raincoat will protect you in the rain and mist, and finally a conversation will take place in Changyin Pavilion. Six hundred years is just a grain of sand, and the vast ocean is just a dream..." Changyin Pavilion is the largest stage in the Forbidden City. This year, the Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala reproduced the Changyin Pavilion Grand Theater on the stage, providing a rich and three-dimensional space for the performance. The colors, shapes, and patterns of ancient Chinese architecture are perfectly integrated with the high-tech large screen, allowing the audience to see the ancient traditional beauty and appreciate the technological beauty that keeps pace with the times.

At the same time, the Beijing Spring Festival Gala launched an AI video interactive mini program called "AI Blesses You in the Year of the Dragon".

This mini program uses artificial intelligence technology, and every viewer can obtain his or her own exclusive "metaverse" image, making "everyone a spokesperson for the Spring Festival Gala" to enhance program interactivity and audience participation.

The mini program customizes unique national trend videos for "spokespersons" based on folk images and Beijing cultural landmarks with Spring Festival characteristics. The launch of the "AI Bless You in the Year of the Dragon" mini program also highlights its application value in the field of traditional culture.

- Dragon TV Spring Festival Gala -

"Spring in the East, Dragon Shining and Chasing the Light" Audio and Video Cultural Feast

Backed by the city's heritage and based on the three major cultures of red, Shanghai style and Jiangnan, the Dragon TV Spring Festival Gala still stands at the height of Chinese entertainment, using fashionable and modern packaging, an international star lineup, and a rich party atmosphere to present extremely dazzling party features, entertainment features, and Shanghai style characteristics.

In addition to conventional stage technology, the 2024 Dragon TV Spring Festival Gala also uses real-life presentation, which is more concrete. In previous years, we relied more on electronic screens to achieve stage effects, but this year we "made" a dragon on the stage, using real-life methods to express the spring in the East and the dragon chasing the light.

The main stage is composed of auspicious clouds and dragon scales, implying that Shanghai gathers the spirit of the world. The corresponding sub-stage is in the shape of a dragon ball, displaying the splendid picture of the Chinese civilization.

At the same time, the Dragon TV Spring Festival Gala also tried to implement cutting-edge technology, such as creative design in the audience area. Wang Hong, an independent producer of Dragon TV, emphasized that the main stage is beautiful, festive, and has a festive atmosphere, and he also hopes that "the audience will participate in the recording with us." Therefore, the Dragon TV Spring Festival Gala also set up a stage behind the audience seats to "let the audience integrate into the stage."

- Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Spring Festival Gala-

"Spring in the East, Dragon Shining and Chasing the Light" Audio and Video Cultural Feast

Guangdong TV’s Bay Area Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Dragon is full of highlights, with the introduction of “metaverse” and “aliens” elements, and AR technology fully applied to the gala’s stage design.

Guangdong TV not only named the Metaverse sub-venue of the Bay Area Spring Festival Gala "Kepler Star", but also invited the top talents in the virtual human track "Kepler Starman" to help out and participate in the program's special multi-faceted interactions...

The "Kepler's Starman" IP was born in Shenzhen, and its popularity is an example of the booming cultural and creative industries in the Greater Bay Area.

With the help of XR technology, young actors walked through the show, singing and dancing, performing a new version of "Chasing the Moon with Colorful Clouds".

- Henan TV Spring Festival Gala -

Thoughts on artificial intelligence

Henan TV's Spring Festival Gala launched a 16-hour live broadcast of "Walking in Henan·Xianglong Eighteen Bowls", connecting traditional folk customs with modern life through short videos, live broadcasts, interactive gameplay and other methods.

There was a lot of XR shooting on the show’s stage. At the same time, Henan TV also arranged a creative micro-drama "My AI Has Awakened".

"My AI Awakens" focuses on the comprehensive occupation of human life by artificial intelligence. Will artificial intelligence replace humans? The program gives the answer in a series of creative jokes: "No."

The protagonist of the show here also travels back to the Tang Dynasty to have a conversation with Li Bai, but AI cannot create a classic work as unrestrained and emotional as Li Bai's.

- Anhui TV Spring Festival Gala -

The dynamic Anhui style and Anhui charm

This year's Anhui Spring Festival Gala is themed "Spring Breeze Deliberately Expands Huizhou Charm", integrating traditional culture with modern technology, and applying cultural elements such as Huizhou prints to the program and stage through modern technologies such as CNC, AR, and XR.

This year's Anhui Evening Gala invited four representative operas from the Yangtze River Delta region, namely Huangmei Opera, Yue Opera, Yang Opera and Shanghai Opera, to perform the "Eighteen Farewells" section from "Butterfly Lovers". The program used XR video packaging to animate the representative work of the Anhui style print "Huancuitang Garden Scenery", with the actors in the painting...

Reference materials: CCTV News, China Central Radio and Television, BRTV International News, Oriental Net, Radio and Television Exclusive, etc.