Experiencing Interruptions?

On Your Mind (Part II)

“On Your Mind” is a musical and visual exploration of the duality in the psyche of bicultural South Asian Americans as we grapple with our multicultural identities, relationships, and unconventional ventures into the arts. With the juxtaposition of traditional and American music, dialects, dancing, costumes, and settings, the song and video are ultimately a meditation on how we crave to pave our own paths but often fear the notion of our culture as a crutch. The solution is to embrace who you are before you can explore who you want to be; you are, brown, bold, beautiful, and so much more.

  • Mithin Thomas
    Director
  • Armaan Gupta
    Writer
  • Zain Nadeem
    Writer
  • Billy Javed
    Writer
  • Armaan Gupta
    Producer
  • Zain Nadeem
    Producer
  • Armaan Gupta
    Key Cast
  • Zain Nadeem
    Key Cast
  • Divyanka Gupta
    Key Cast
  • Mithin Thomas
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Music Video
  • Genres:
    Hip Hop, Pop
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 34 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 11, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    6,000 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Mithin Thomas

Mithin is a self-taught Director and Cinematographer based out of Brooklyn, NY. Born in Saudi Arabia and having spent the better part of his childhood in three different countries, he is no stranger to the concept of a 'global citizen'. After receiving his Bachelor's in Anthropology and Asian American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, Mithin spent the majority of his time post-graduation teaching himself the art of visual storytelling. After a year of working a traditional nine-to-five, a close friend reached out to Mithin in regards to visually creating dance videos for a music album. Given the newfound freedom and flexibility in both work and life, Mithin entrenched himself into full-time production work. Since then, Mithin has worked on a host of narratives, music videos, commercials and documentaries. Mithin is currently Director of Production at Dialects, a full-service production company that he helped launch earlier this year focusing on building the stories of South Asian artists, founders, and brands.

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Director Statement

The manifestation of this project was threefold. Thematically we wanted to depict the delicate dance in the mind of multicultural artists where one cannot help but seek a balance between his or her roots on one hand, and the innate desire to create unique and original artwork on the other. Because of who we are and where we come from, we are inherently and infinitely bound to this catch-22.

Thus we sought to embrace and explore these complexities in almost every facet of production. From the settings to dances, to costumes, colors, and visual effects, we juxtaposed the dualities whenever we could. Like our work as artists, it was sometimes blatant, and other times subtle.

Then there are times we want to escape our culture entirely and seek our own unnatural and unorthodox adventure. Thus the escape to the Virgin Islands, the sense of adventure and mystery, as well as the use of magic. So much magic we somehow managed to get perfect cloud cover and natural lighting.

Ultimately we believe we managed to create a music video that compliments the concept of the music and lyrics while providing the audience with an experience that like us, is both familiar and different.