Director's statement:
I had many different ideas on how this story could play out and I ended with this fun little strange town with a secret shop hidden in the woods that shows people fears to deepen bonds and help with awareness. I originally came up with this idea from my weird hyper fixation on phobias that I have had recently, where I literally made a whole list of different phobias that I am still adding to. I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a shop that sold items with the fear of said item written on the item?" And, yes, I do realize that is probably something strange to think, but I thought that would be so cool. I would love to by a pen with 'Stylophobia' written on the casing because that would be so cool. Like, "I have a pen with the phobia of pens written on it! Aren't I awesome?" So I felt like this would be a really cool concept, but I also wanted the main character to be a kid who doesn't really know anything about phobias. As I went along I thought it would be so cool if the main character was actually, secretly super important, or famous. I was in between him being a criminal running from the government, or the government in disguise just to add a fun twist. I just hope that my story is at least a little good since my expertise is long stories, and this is a short screenplay.