The Digital Story: Urashima Taro

The Picture Source

    Hello, this week’s assignment was to create a digital story. Yakup Kaan Soyarslan (click to check his blog) and I created a different version of the famous Japanese tale Urashima Taro for our project. The original story includes his marriage with the princess and ends with Taro’s death. We added a sick mother to the story to catch an obvious dramatic question and we give them a happy ending.

    After we had decided on the general frame, we wrote the script. And then, we found and created some backgrounds and graphics to create scenes. Also, we created Taro and Otohime’s characters with different mimics by using https://charat.me/en/genesis/ and https://charat.me/en/boys/ .  Then, we put the renders of the characters with the mimicry on the same canvas using Photoshop CC. Some editions had to be made here and there, like adding shadows and resizing all the images, which took a while. After we were done with the scenes, we went over the script and decided on the sound effects and the music we could use, and saved them. When everything was ready, we used Camtasia Studio to animate the characters and add the transitions, and also combine everything with the appropriate music and sound effects. Then, we added the Comic-like speech bubbles with the correct lines. Then, we used Audacity to vocalize these lines. There were 4 parts that needed vocalization: Taro, Kameo, The Princess, and the narrator, which we shared equally amongst ourselves. When everything was done and ready, we rendered it in 1080p and 60fps and put it on YouTube.     Digital storytelling is interesting for students, especially for young learners. They can create a story with decent instructions or a teacher can use storytelling for reading or vocabulary teaching. This is our digital story:

 
    

 

Resources Used in The Story of Taro

Programs:

Audacity

Camtasia Studio

Photosop CC

Illustrator CC (For the first scene)

Fonts:

Anime Ace 2.0 BB

Images:

Rising Sun on Mt.Fuji - Illustration by Yakup Kaan Soyarslan

Https://charat.me/ for Character creation

Kameo:

https://www.moddb.com/groups/anime-fans-of-moddb/images/turtle1

Underwater Palace: 

https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Ryugu_Palace

https://wallpaperaccess.com/underwater-castle

https://wallpaperaccess.com/anime-underwater

https://www.deviantart.com/vv-ave/art/Underwater-Castle-881094613

Taro’s father: https://www.pngfind.com/mpng/hJhhxTi_anime-character-with-man-bun-png-download-illustration/

Taro’s mother:  https://tr.pinterest.com/pin/19844054597721094/

Taro’s mother’s new face: https://www.anime-planet.com/characters/shoko-saeki 

The Beach

https://wallpaperaccess.com/anime-beach

https://wallpapersafari.com/w/za2dLF

Taro’s House

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/120189883794770194/

The Fisherman Background

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/D5vPRe

Outro Characters

https://www.pinterest.com/katinamwallace/doge/ https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/985177250/doge-meme-japanese-ukiyo-e-style-art

Music, Sound Effects And Graphic Effects (SFX & GFX)

Shinobue Sato(佐藤和哉) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R24BT9S1hGE

Beach Ambient SFX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvfDyAc-cI8

Creation Effects - Lens Flare Stock Footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLo8aMKr7E4&t=68s

BerlinAtmospheres - Glowing SFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIJuIwjwKso

FalkenAuge - Lens Flare SFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqXI-mJ1ntQ

One Piece OST - To The Grand Line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vsoCQ9j2kg

Kosaqo - The Plight of the Samurai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF_IbFpn-HA

Nathan Olson - Under Water Sound SFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFI5bhL4M4Y&t=17s

Chesteroid - Outro Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK5Ziq_BHWM

Tofu - Yooo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKMw2it8dQY

Free Soundtrack Stock - Sand SFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqMVI86JJvo

Water Splash - Sound Effects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78SwDWIKZtU

Aether Sound - Chest SFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oY5gyTsvMY