Smriti Jha, Ashlen Singh and Anjali Asok

Twenty-six-year-old digital marketing professional Insha Padania says she made a filter on types of Mumbaikars as she felt the need to be creatively productive during this time. "Initially, I thought that AR filters could be made only by brands or required engineering. Then, I came across a filter about my school. A quick search led me to tutorials to use Spark AR and I ended up making my first filter," she adds. Her filter generates 50 random results, ranging from 'the one who visits Lalbaugcha Raja each year' to 'the one who knows the best vada pav stalls in the city'.

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Local twist
Instead of looking outside, Indian creators are taking inspiration from their own cultural trends. Take for instance, 20-year-old journalism student Smriti Jha, who gave Christopher's filter a Bollywood spin. "I really liked the reactions to the gibberish filter and thought of making an Indian version, and who doesn't love Bollywood? Within hours, celebrities like Armaan Malik, Gauhar Khan, Kaneez Surka, and many others were using it. It's got 60 million users," says Jha. Inspired by the Prime Minister's recent address to the nation, Padania made another filter that prompts the user to learn "shuddh Hindi".

Others like Ashlen Singh, an aspiring filmmaker from Kolkata, and Anjali Asok, a 23-year-old architect from Kochi, looked at the feature as a way to tap into community tropes. Speaking about his filter, titled Which Calcutta stereotype are you, Singh says, "The idea was to appeal to the nostalgia and emotion towards common Bengali terms that people associate with. It was a way to reach out to all those away from home." Asok's creation, Mallu Auntie's opinion about you, has her very own comic character rattle off judgment about the user. "Mallu aunties and their many opinions are a common trope in Kerala. It got six million impressions with celebrities like Nyla Usha, Ranjini Haridas and Mrudula Murali sharing it."

Tech talk
All you need is a PC to download Spark AR, along with some basic designing skills, the creators tell us. "If designing seems daunting, websites like Canva give you editable design templates," Padania adds. Asok urges first-timers to refer to tutorials before trying the software. "My filter contained 20 slides. The total size of the filter must be below 4MB. Once you're done making it, export the file to the AR studio hub, from where it goes to Instagram for the review," she says. Instagram takes between a few hours and 10 days to respond. "If your filter gets rejected, Instagram is kind enough to point out the exact detail that needs to be rectified. You can hook up your phone to the PC to keep viewing how your filter looks. Download and sync the Spark AR Play app," says Padania. The creators' common advice for first-timers: keep it simple, relatable and try to offer a few laughs in these testing times.

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