When Leonard sneaks into the suspect's apartment at the midpoint of the film, Dax Phelan decided to reveal important clues to the story's central mystery in a Cantonese-language voicemail message heard briefly in the background. According to Phelan, the reason for this was because he wanted Cantonese speakers and non-Cantonese speakers to experience the second half of the film completely differently upon their first viewing.
From its inception, Jasmine was designed to reward repeat viewing. Despite the low budget, director Dax Phelan insisted that every element (e.g. script, acting, editing, music, sound, etc.) operate on two levels simultaneously, in order to satisfy both first-time and repeat viewers. Of his experience working on the film, composer Shie Rozow joked, "I basically had to do two scores for the price of none."
Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" and "Vertigo," Dax Phelan employed the technique of limited perspective, in order to control the exposition and create suspense. As a result, Jason Tobin ("Leonard To") appears in every scene in the film and every shot, except for those which are cutaways from Leonard To's point of view.
Post-production was delayed when, after completing his first cut, Dax Phelan's mother, grandmother, and dog passed away in a span of less than a year. According to Phelan, it was the worst time of his life and, because the film dealt with love and loss, he had to take time away from it. When Phelan eventually came up for air, he re-watched the first cut, which he'd once been fond of, and felt it no longer rang true for him because it contained what he now felt were false moments. He told editor, Chris Chan Lee, that he wanted to go back to the dailies and start over. Lee defended the original cut, but agreed to go down the "rabbit hole" with Phelan, reordering scenes, cutting characters, and even searching for moments in pre-roll footage that might be useful. The result is a very different film in many ways from the one Phelan originally set out to make, but Phelan claims it's truer to what the story was always about and he wouldn't change a frame. The film is dedicated to Phelan's mother.
The film was shot in 24 days.