Reinterpretation of a Folk Tale
Github Repository
Elias Jarzombek and I will be reinterpreting the Korean folk tale “The Green Frog” for our final project.
Synopsis
A young frog never listens to his widowed mother — when she tells him to do something, he always does the opposite. She scolds him but he continues to ignore her, causing her to become increasingly distressed and then ill. One day, when she knows she is about to die, she tells him to bury her on the bank of the river instead of on the mountain like she wanted, thinking he will do the opposite of what she asks. She soon passes and the son is so full of regret that he decides to make a change and follow his mother’s instructions for the first time. Though he knows that burying her on the river bank was unwise, he does so anyway. But when the monsoon rains come, the river overflows and washes his mother’s grave away, and that is why green frogs cry when it rains.
The original story’s purpose was to teach young children to listen to their parents and explains why the frogs croak when it rains. Elias and I thought that the original story was too one-sided and we could not find any redeeming qualities for the son. Instead we could reinterpret this story to be about the importance of communication. The son does not obey his mother but does not tell her why. The mother scolds him and asks him to conform instead of trying to understand his motives. By the time they both reverse course, it is too late. We want to keep the story open ended and not ascribe too much blame to any character.
Storyboard
Introduction: Establish setting and characters (scene is light/carefree)
Opposites: The son repeatedly goes against will of mother
Reversal: The mother is about to die, decides to tell son the opposite of what she wants
Burial: The son regrets past decisions and decides to do what the mother said even though he knows it’s not a good idea
Regret: The rains wash away the grave and the son mourns (scene has transitioned to dark/mournful)
While we are unsure of the exact form of our final experience, Elias and I have discussed several approaches. Firstly, there needs to be an element of interactivity, whether that be controlling the characters, decisions, or an aspect of the environment. We also thought that it could be effective to show how different actions lead to different outcomes.
Another direction we discussed was starting the story from the burial scene and then revealing how we got there. Alternatively, each scene could be approachable from the start and the viewer could piece together the story themselves.
Although we talked about modifying the story with different characters, since the croak or “kaegul” (see the footnote) ties the narrative together so well, we thought a more literal rendition might be a good way to explore the sonic aspect of the story.
New Storyboard
After a lot of feedback and discussion, we decided to focus our story on the dangers of miscommunication and lack of understanding.
Throughout the interactive experience, the user can decide the son's actions similar to a choose-your-own-adventure game. However, little does the audience know that the decisions are futile as they all lead to the same unfortunate outcome and the mother believes the son is doing the opposites on purpose.
