The Neighbors' Window

In a 2019 interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Marshall Curry detailed key aspects of the production and storytelling: "It was a production challenge to find two apartments that faced each other. I knew if we tried to cheat it, the audience would feel the falseness. So I looked and looked, and in the end we shot in a very generous friends' apartment, and their neighbors also said okay... The passage of time is an important part of the story - how Alli's obsession with the neighbors develops, and how the neighbors' lives change over the course of 18 months. That's tricky to squeeze into a film that's not even 20 minutes long. So we had to build in clues that communicated the passage of time - weather changing, holiday decorations, infant appearing and growing, etc. It's always a delicate balance between being too obvious and on-the-nose with those clues and being so subtle that people miss it altogether. When I was editing I would show people cuts and ask them at the end how much time they felt had passed. I'd add a few more clues or take a few away until I settled specific shots and specific durations in the final cut."

When Alli is alone in the apartment and watching the neighbors, the binoculars are visible on the window sill, but when she wants to use them, suddenly they are in a desk drawer.

Referenced in Animat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: 92nd Academy Awards Review (2020)