For the eight expats from the United States, Russia, Brazil, Morocco, Pakistan and Vietnam, their recent trip to the Qingdao West Coast New Area in Shandong province was a journey through the marvels of technological innovation.

At a film-making studio in the China Movie Metropolis, Russian visitor Balbashova Victoria found herself in awe as she sat inside a spherical device.

"It's so cool to see such high-tech equipment used for film-making," she said. "I've heard that this machine is one of the only two in the world and the only one in Asia, a testament to Qingdao WCNA's advanced film-making industry."

Consisting of 150 industrial cameras and six high-speed cameras, this advanced setup is able to create a micron-level facial scan. It uses technologies such as artificial intelligence to scan actors' faces and generate hyper-realistic digital models, allowing digital counterparts to replace real actors in various scenes and pushing the boundaries of visual storytelling.

This equipment is just one of the many pioneering technologies available on CMM's virtualization production platform, which is leading to the digitization and virtualization of China's film industry.