Owen Kline specifically wrote the part of Robert's best friend Miles with Miles Emanuel in mind. Kline first met Emanuel at a video store at which Kline was working. Emanuel was 11 years old at the time, and was renting a copy of Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf (1968).
Despite the fact that Daniel Zolghadri is right-handed, Owen Kline made the character of Robert left-handed and insisted that Zolghadri draw with his left hand while filming. During close-ups where Zolghadri can't be seen, Kline, who is left-handed, did the drawing and inking as a hand model for Robert. By the end of the shoot, Zolghadri kept drawing with his left hand even when the cameras were not rolling.
Owen Kline has cited Greaser's Palace (1972), Heavy Traffic (1973), Lilith (1964), and Frownland (2007) as the primary cinematic inspirations behind his writing and directing of this movie.
When Owen Kline was a child, he first aspired to draw comic strips for newspapers. Daniel Zolghadri, on the other hand, did not draw and had no ambition to be an artist of any kind before filming this movie.