Now available on Amazon Prime, VRITRA is a short film on mental health. The film stars Sachit Grover, Ankit Prasad, Maya Patel, Bhumika Jain, Arushi Pahuja, and Snuggles. It is directed by Nipa Shah.
In Hindu mythology, Vritra was a dragon who blocked the rivers and caused a drought. Lord Shiva killed him with a bolt and released the waters. In the context of our lives, Vritra represents the mental dragons that grip us — self-doubt, anxiety, sadness, etc. and our friends and family collectively represent Lord Shiva to enable us to be released from our dragons.
This was my first ever short film and I was extremely nervous while filming this. I wanted to have a powerful performance, but I also wanted the performance to be very realistic. Finding this balance was a little difficult. To prepare filming, I had to talk to close friends and family who were dealing with mental health issues. After chatting with a few people, it became easier to get in character. I really wanted to do justice to this role and have this film help bring awareness on mental health.
In the south Asian community, mental health is often overlooked or ignored. I am confident that this short film will be a good step in raising conversation around the topic of mental health within south Asian communities.
Through my acting work, I constantly post videos that touch upon various social issues. On my YouTube channel, I have posted about suicide awareness and domestic abuse, among other topics. I believe it’s important to raise awareness on different societal issues.
In this video best-selling mental health author Julie A. Fast talks about living life with bipolar disorder, a psychotic disorder, anxiety and a head injury during the coronavirus pandemic.
She shares how being silly and creative helps her get things done even when depression and anxiety make her want to isolate in her room in front of the television. She hopes that her hair bouquet makes you smile and brings some joy to your day.
Here are the additional links Julie mentions in her video:
Julie says, “I love Marty and Fran’s work. Their focus on friendship is life-changing. I love the newsletters and the posts from people around the world who remind me that I’m not alone. We are in this together.”
Julie is the author ofGet it Done When You’re Depressed, Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder, Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder and The Health Cards Treatment System for Bipolar Disorder. You can find her on Facebook at Julie A. Fast and on Instagram @JulieFast.
During December my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson has been recording a series of daily vlog (video blog) posts. (You can find them on her YouTube channel.) I was fascinated by the insight these gave into my friend’s life and was inspired me to try something similar. With that in mind I have been exploring how to record and share short audio posts. Hopefully these will be as interesting to our audience here at Gum on My Shoe as Aimee’s vlogs have been to me.
The Technology
I wanted to be able to complete the whole workflow on my Samsung S9 phone and to record using my VicTsing Bluetooth Headset. I spent a fair amount of time testing various voice recorder apps but none picked up the audio from my headset. I finally came across Parrot Voice Recorder. It works well and I haven’t had too many issues with it. You can hear how I got on testing this setup in the first two recordings listed below.
I initially considered posting my audio clips to Soundcloud but the free option only allows for a total of three hours’ recordings. Fran and I have a YouTube channel and I decided to upload my audio clips there so they would be available alongside our other content. YouTube will only accept video files so I looked for a convenient way to convert the WAV audio files I’d recorded into movie files.
After a few tests I settled on Avee Music Player (Pro) which I used for the first five clips listed below. I have had some issues with exporting the video files, however, and at the suggestion of a friend (thanks Karl!) I used PowerDirector video editor for the final clip listed here. It seems more stable and I may stick with it in future.
The Recordings
Here are direct links to the recordings I have posted to our YouTube channel so far.
Scroll down to play these recordings within this post.
1. Walking home : testing the Parrot Voice Recorder, part 1
[5:12] In this first recording I discuss the Parrot Voice Recorder app which I have been using to record using my Bluetooth headset. I converted the WAV file to MP4 using Avee Music Player (Pro) then uploaded the video to YouTube.
[11:57] Talking about the wellbeing / mental health workshop I had attended, with a shout out to my blogging bestie Aimee Wilson and her series of daily vlogs for Vlogmas 2019.
6. A few thoughts on politics and pathological positivity
[12:52] In this recording I discuss my political awakening and pathological positivity on the morning after the UK General Election. This video was created using PowerDirector video editor for Android.
