I was walking in the city one night when a young woman came to me crying hysterically and asking for money. She was so believable, I gave her some, but then wondered why I sympathized with her more than anyone else. We looked like we could be the same age, and the same economic background, so I was more inclined to believe she was really in a bind. But if she had been lying, what sort of circumstances would have prompted her to ask a stranger for money? That was the impetus for Zooey's character.

Dito came from a play I had written in college, because I was interested in stagnation in the middle of such a fast-paced city. I wanted Dito to be stuck, so that the life as he remembered it, and life as it is now, is fractured. If I pushed his denial to its furthest point, I imagined a man living in his own bubble. What connected these two people in my mind was that they both could be perceived, at times, as crazy.

Although I naturally approach storytelling from a character-driven standpoint, I kept seeing "Raving" in pictures. I didn't want to reveal too much about either Katie or Dito, so I tried to evade the audience with vignettes. New York City is full of walking short films; it is a city of strangers and possibilities at every corner you turn. For "Raving," I knew I wanted to have two lonely characters meet, trust each other enough to engage in conversation, see where it takes them, and be changed forever.