Official Trailer - Lena's Journey

Synopsis: Lena's childhood is much like anyone's: loving parents, great friends, passionate dreams, and a secret. Lena manages her secret, mental illness, for years even after having a daughter and shelving her ambitions. But when her father passes away she suffers a schizophrenic break leading her to unwittingly commit an assault that lands her in the legal system and eventually in a psychiatric hospital where she learns to manage her symptoms. In this VR experience, we see what it feels like to experience the psychotic symptoms from the perspective of the mentally ill, and what it means to trust the people around you more than you can trust your own reality.
Lena’s Journey is the cornerstone of Western State Hospital’s newly revamped 2-week employee training program that focuses on the importance of verbal de-escalation techniques, understanding mental illness and person-centered care.
The training program is the first of its kind to leverage 360 video technology and storytelling in this way. On the first day of training, new employees get introduced to Lena, a single mom and a musician who is living with schizophrenia. Due to her disorienting illness, she makes a terrible mistake. Trainees go with her on her journey through the legal system and eventual admittance to Western State Hospital (WSH). The State Hospital partnered with Chocolate Milk & Donuts (CM&D), an Austin, Texas based VR/AR creative agency that specializes in immersive storytelling to bring the story to life in a headset. Collaboration between CM&D staff, hospital employees, mental health professionals, and even some hospital patients brought Lena’s debilitating mental illness and character traits to life.