The autonomy of Alex Jones: portraying and analyzing anxiety in film

The normalization, glamorization, and stigmatization of mental illness has been a problem in film for years. Today the popular television show; 13 Reasons Why (2017) and films such as Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) have brought mental health awareness into the mainstream media for the good and the bad. More recently, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the outcry for mental health awareness due to the increase in mental illness. In this paper, I discuss the process of creating a short film that depicts generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety during the pandemic, and how anxiety can impact a person on a daily basis. I discuss my research, pre-production, filming, post-production process, and rationale behind my filming decisions. Here is a link to the short film, The Autonomy of Alex Jones: https://youtu.be/JP-1KS-6vg0