Abstract: Landscape animation is a new form of landscape design performance in the digital multimedia era. From aspects of essence and form of landscape animation, this paper summarizes the research of landscape animation and its applications in film art according to the documentary aesthetic of long take theory. The authors analyze three characteristics of landscape animation, i.e. documentary aesthetic feature, technical feature, and film art feature. Combining with the case of the virtual scene design in the movie Zhao’s Orphan, the paper shows the whole process of landscape animation from design concept, design process to result achievement.