Production
The film's director Ben Coccio recalls that he was in a pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York, just finishing his first 35mm short film, on the day of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, and saw coverage of the event on the eatery's television, commenting, "I remember thinking that I was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner." Coccio was also struck by the extent to which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned that shooting, compared to the impromptu crimes of passion that typified other school shootings. Coccio became eager to address a story in a way that was very different and not exploitative, and drew upon his own views of high school as a place of tension where "anything could happen at any time". Coccio felt as if it had to be "done just right." He continued, "if it turns into a oversimplified polemic or melodrama, then it’s worse than making a bad movie—it’s taking a dump on someone’s grave." Coccio's theory of student school shooters is not that they are the most bullied, as such students tend to develop feelings of inferiority and are likely to harm themselves. Coccio feels that shooters tend to be students with feelings of superiority, and that "when other people don't confirm that, it really gets under their skin."
While working at a temporary job in March 2001, Coccio experienced near-death during a car crash. The experience gave him the motivation to make the movie, stating, "If I want to make a movie, I'd better make it, because tomorrow may never come". The idea of the video camera came while Coccio researched further into the Columbine High School massacre, where he discovered Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold recorded part of their preparations for the massacre through a video camera. Coccio started writing the script in April, and shooting for the film began in July, and ended in October.
None of the Connecticut high schools where he sought to film the movie would allow Coccio access, and he ended up using the interior of a building at State University of New York in Purchase, New York. The "appropriately fortress-like" exterior of the High School was New Milford High School in New Milford, Connecticut, where Coccio lived at the time. Reportedly, he did not receive formal permission to film at the school grounds, and did so in secret.
When casting, Coccio inquired at high schools throughout Connecticut looking for teenagers interested in acting who might not have much or any professional experience. Coccio had three days of open auditions, during which he did not inform the interviewees of the film's nature. 16-year-old Andre Keuck responded to an ad Coccio placed in Backstage Magazine and brought his classmate and fellow theater enthusiast Cal Robertson along to the audition. Both boys had acted in Shakespeare productions at the Stratford Avon Theater in Stratford, Connecticut. They were encouraged to improvise throughout the film's production.
