This zero-budget film was shot in an apartment in Upstate New York over the course of a

single weekend. Actor Katie Bruno called in from Nashville, TN to provide the voice of Becca.

Katie Spallone, who provided the voice of the Woman on the phone, also provided the voice

for Shane’s voicemail and the voice of the dispatcher on the police officer’s radio in the final

scene. It’s left up to the audience to decide if there is a connection among those voices in

the story.

Shane’s apartment undergoes a gradual transformation through the course of the film,

starting cluttered but becoming tidier until it’s virtually empty at the end. In addition, Shane

starts folding paper cranes and leaving them everywhere. Since the scenes were shot out of

sequence, production designer (and script supervisor) Abby J. Smith had to be meticulous

in keeping track of the state of the apartment from scene to scene.

The color red is used throughout the film to represent warning signs from Shane’s subconscious. Gibson and Smith had fun finding ways to plant dashes of the color in various scenes. It was serendipitous that the kitchen in the apartment happened to feature a stained-glass window with red accents in it.

In the penultimate scene, a candle Shane lights goes out of its own accord, and then a match he lights does the same. While subtle on the screen, these practical effects were not straightforward to produce. During each take, in addition to worrying about the actor’s performance and the camera’s movements, Gibson had to cross their fingers and hope that the flames would cooperate and die out on cue.