How to stay sane and healthy while making a film

The Creative Independent / November 2018
A filmmaker’s guide to protecting your mental, emotional, and financial health.
Multi-colored stick figure drawing
Illustration by Molly Fairhurst.

When most people think of the movie business, they think of sharks. The Harvey Weinstein, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese type of alpha male risk-taker. The movie director is often thought of as someone who is gregarious, relentlessly pitching, always selling their idea to anyone who will listen, and with a seemingly insatiable appetite for networking.


That’s not me.


I’m a classic introvert and I suffer from mental illness. Specifically, I have clinical depression, dysthymia (a chronic low-level depression), anxiety, and social anxiety disorder. I come from a family riddled with mental illness and addiction and most of that was passed down to me.