Jai Shri Mataji! And hello to all the brothers and sister of the Sahaj world. I was too busy getting ready for the second lockdown and what not that I have completely forgotten to post about this.
Back in August 2020 during the first lockdown, few mommies got together and thought we would like to start a project. This project is called "The Story of Nirmala". So, the mommies wrote the script and we got the kids to do the voiceover. And I would be the producer and director of this video.
Everyone did this in their own home, with their own device and send all the recorded voices to me. I would Google photos online, compile the voiceovers and produced them episode by episode. All this was done by using only the app VN. And in-between I inserted another yogini's daughter's illustrations.
The project dragged for a few months due to all of us busy with our own thing. The challenge was to get the kids to record. The younger ones have to repeat after the adults. While the older ones can read. Some mommies have to record word by word and sent in several recordings and thanks to technology, I was able to merge them all together via a website. There are many mp3 joiners and mergers online and free of charge.
On 30th December 2020, we finally got all the illustrations ready. So, my goal was to present this for our collective after New Year's Puja. So, all I have to do was to put the illustrations into the video and that's it!
However, I made a huge mistake! I was doing all these editing with the tablet and because the storage was small, it told me to delete some files before I could proceed. Without thinking, I deleted all the source pictures and videos. I thought I have already publish the videos into mp4 format but I haven't!
So the whole of 31st December 2020, I was running like crazy. First trying to sort out the videos. Then went to the centre to help with flower decoration. Then came home and made a cake for prasad. And in between I was trying to sort out the videos.
Good news was the subtitles were still there. That was the most painstaking part of the editing. Initially was typing from my phone then tried the tablet and it was easier with the S-pen.
Bad news was the images and voiceovers were missing and that I had to re-do this episode by episode. So there was 9 episodes altogether. On top of that, VN started giving me problems. The videos became corrupted after publishing them.
I didn't understand. The vibrations were cool with each episodes but the video was still not coming together. What I found was when the video have typo, I had to re-do it then only the video would work. If I don't, nothing works. So, I had to correct some mistakes here and there and then it was done! It's like Shri Mataji telling me that this is Her story and so it has to be good, may be not perfect, but good. In fact, I couldn't remember which photo I put earlier and I re-do it again and found that the second time was much better. It matches the voiceover perfectly.
With very little time left, I only sat down with full focus at about 9pm. I prayed to Shri Mataji to please let this work. Gave bandhan, change to inShot app and voila, smooth like a baby!
By 11.30pm, the video was finally completed.
After New Year's Puja, we presented this 15 minutes video to the collective. And the next day, this was on YouTube. However, it is unlisted, so only those with the link can open. It is not searchable and won't be shown in the channel either.
What I learn from this experience is to just surrender to Shri Mataji. I was at wit's end on how to get it done before the New Year. Finally I just decided to let it go and pray to Shri Mataji to make it work. It's a video about Her life after all. So no need to plan too much. No need to do so much unnecessary work. Just need to stay in focus, full attention on Sahasrara and surrender. And it works so beautifully!
So, here it is! Enjoy!