Overthinking It

The premise came out of something ordinary and recognisable: the moment a small, ambiguous detail on someone’s phone becomes a full investigation, and a friend who should talk you down instead hands you a highlighter.

The decision that shaped everything else was to play it at the pitch of a real thriller. One bedroom, two days, and a visual grammar borrowed from films that make small actions feel enormous. Shaun of the Dead turns making tea into an action sequence with quick inserts, whip pans and sound; the same rhythm is used here for pinning notes, opening laptops and typing too fast. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World puts text on screen and splits the frame until an ordinary conversation feels epic; the investigation is chaptered on screen and the words from the evidence board push into frame.

The corkboard was built as a practical set piece rather than a graphic: printouts, sticky notes, photographs, red thread. By the second day the wall had become the plot, and the film could be blocked around it.