Brian De Palma said the film's producer doubted anyone could be stuffed into a sofa bed, but the director recalls, "I shot it in one shot to show that you can, in fact, fit somebody into the sofa bed."
Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt were roommates in Southern California in the early 1970s while they were struggling performers. They held parties for their friends and neighbors who included Paul Schrader, Blythe Danner, Bruce Paltrow, and Brian De Palma. One year at Christmas, Kidder and Salt opened separate boxes under their Christmas tree, and each one contained the script to this film. This project was De Palma's gift to them.
According to director Brian De Palma, an elaborate tracking shot had to be deleted from the film. De Palma said the search scene was originally "a Max Ophüls-type tracking shot about six minutes long, and while they are searching through the apartment the camera keeps coming back to the couch and the spot is getting bigger and bigger and bigger," De Palma stated. "I shot it, but because the camera could only get down so low and still go up high enough to shoot the rest of the scene we couldn't get down to the bottom of the couch and when we saw the rushes it looked ridiculous because it looked like the guy was bleeding up through the arm of the couch. So I had to throw out the whole tracking shot, and I was forced to use close-ups and television-type coverage."
While the majority of the film was shot on 35mm film, the dream sequence was shot on 16mm film to give it a more gritty atmospheric appearance.
To indicate the musical effects he wanted, Brian De Palma put together an edit of his film that was dubbed with music from the films of the composer he most wanted to hire, Bernard Herrmann. While he was showing it to Herrmann, the composer stopped him with, "Young man, I cannot watch your film while I'm listening to Marnie (1964)."