Originally, they planned to focus on the village's well-known seasonal sheep migration, a long-standing, eco-friendly convention of the locals. Every winter, the herdsmen drive their sheep to the island in the middle of the lake, where the pasture is lush, and bring them back when the frozen lake is about to thaw.

However, Zhang learned on the way to the village that the migration had taken place ahead of schedule due to the warm weather. They shifted gears, deciding instead to record local life, which turned out to be a surprise.

It amazed him that in a place where there's no running water, the internet is accessible. During casting and shooting, they found that local children were well-informed about what was going on in the online world.

Similar to their city counterparts, locals browse short videos on platforms like Douyin and scan a QR code to pay for groceries. They have been promoting the village online, making it more visible to outsiders in a bid to develop tourism.

At the end of the short film, protagonist Pema Yangjen expresses her longing to see China's bustling cities, like Shigatse in Tibet and Shanghai.

Usually engaged in producing commercials for a living, in their personal projects Zhang and Gan have often sought to record the diversity of people, their different ways of life and regional traditions, much like Before the Snow Melts, the duo said.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice-president of Worldwide Marketing, said that young creatives — the most connected and mobile generation — can capture the ordinary people who can make something extraordinary. These people, with the aid of products like the iPhone, have a greater ability to do that than anyone, or anything, in the past.