How do we make the videos?

Our videos are made using the following five steps:

1. First, we asked the copyright holders of the two books “Hosiwa Miteiru” (Stars Are Watching) and “For Those Who Pray for Peace” for the permission to use the accounts in these books for our project. These are books that collect writings by the atomic survivors in Hiroshima. They agreed that we can translate any account in these books into English and present the oral readings of the translations on YouTube. The accounts suitable for the project can be selected and shortened as we like, as long as we do not change the content of the stories.

2. Second, we select accounts suitable for our project from the books and shorten them when they are too long without changing the words and sentences of the stories. We consider stories less than about seven minutes to be suitable for oral reading.

3. Third, we translate them into English. One of the members, a native speaker of American English, who majored in Japanese at the graduate school of Osaka University, is in charge of the translation. A Japanese member helps him, when necessary, since the original stories contain old-fashioned expressions, and checks the translation compared with the original text.

4. Fourth, some of the members practice reading the stories to understanding the content deeply, and then express them through English sound.

5. Finally, we record our readings, and together with music and pictures we make videos to be uploaded to “Messages from the Heaven of Hiroshima” on YouTube.