2020: the best year of my life
My role
Director and writer
Year
2020
When the UK went into lockdown, everyone was forced inside, unable to go outside or see their friends and family.
Lizzie and her mother spent their entire existence in fear of the outside world as well as each other. Both living with a rare condition, Anthrophobia, the fear of humans, neither had any real experience of what the outside world was like. When every person went into lockdown, they could come out of it. They could experience the world in all it's beauty, free of their fear.
But will they be brave enough to do so?
As an introvert myself, I found lockdown comforting. All the social drain of life was alleviated and I enjoyed my own company. My own enjoyment of lockdown got me thinking about introverts, than more extremely, social anxiety. I started researching this when I can across this condition called Anthrophobia which is the fear of other people. The more I researched the more effected I felt about the way these people live in lockdown their entire lives, but rather than hiding for a disease, they are hiding from an ever-present humanity. I began to build a story around the notion that these people, who never leave the house, would be able to experience the outside world for the first time when everyone was locked away from them.
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I developed, produced and edited this story in lockdown, with my family as the actors. I had a lot of free time, so invested in a camera, downloaded a professional editing suite and writing software and got started. I had never used a camera on my own before, I learned how to edit through YouTube and, although I have come very far since this first film, it was a fundamental turning point for me.
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