Colapinto, then a novice writer for Canadian magazines, conceived the movie's plot when director Ghiran suggested they make a two-hander short film set in a single room. The Gary Hart political scandal had happened not long before and Colapinto wondered how the journalists had felt staking out Hart and potentially destroying his marriage and career. he pitted the booze-soaked former Fleet-street tabloid veteran reporter, Owens, against the scruples-ridden recent-journalism school graduate, Cayle. Colapinto went on to write for Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 2006. His work on this movie in many ways anticipated many of the moral quagmires he would face in his actual career as a journalist. The woman with whom the politician is caught cheating is played by Donna Mehalko, director Ghiran's former girlfriend, and Colapinto's then-girlfriend, and now his wife of almost 25 years.