Pre-Production: Keeping It PG

During the pre-production process, it's important to make conscious decisions about how to convey tension, fear, and suspense when working with sensitive subjects without resorting to graphic violence of explicit content. For our film, we've chosen to keep the narrative PG-13 rated, ensuring that the story will remain impactful while avoiding any triggering or distressing content. Our focus is on maintaining realism, which is especially important since we don't have access to professional actors who could safely and effectively portray intense scenes of violence or trauma. 

The Online Connection:

The relationship between the two characters begins digitally, with Eva and the stalker meeting online. From the start, we've made the conscious decision to focus solely on their conversations—no exchanges beyond chatting. Although, we haven't fully decided how much we want to show regarding their talking history online. We wanted the main focus to be of the characters meeting physically, so the online portion shown may be brief.

Meeting in Person:

When the characters eventually meet in person, we wanted to avoid any scenes of violence or aggression. In many films, a dramatic confrontation is normalized when the antagonist and victim come face-to-face for the first time, but we chose to take a different route to keep things as realistic as possible, and to ensure that we're not portraying anything that could be distressing or too intense for a PG-13 rated audience. Rather than focusing on a violent physical encounter when Eva is taken by the stalker, we plan to show her growing a sense of unease and confusion as the situation becomes increasingly tense. When they meet at the parking garage, the moment will be filled with suspense—Eva may feel something is off, but she can't put a finger on it. The stalkers true intentions won't be immediately clear, and the threat will be implied through non-violent ways. We'll use cinematography and sound design to build tension, relying on that rather than any explicit action to build tension