In 2014, Folayan traveled to Ferguson, Missouri during the uprising that followed police officer Darren Wilson's killing of Michael Brown. She initially expected to document the experience via print journalism, but was struck by a sense of contrast between the city she was witnessing and the way it was being represented in the newsmedia, telling "Filmmaker Magazine": "what was being put on the news was only catching the surface of the issues. Sensationalist, inflammatory language was hyping the story to get ratings, but as a society we needed to get to the truth and to positive dialogue." Seeking a longer format that would allow space for such an exploration, she set out to make a film, working with cinematographer Lucas Alvarado Farrar, a Columbia classmate of Folayan, and co-director Damon Davis, a St. Louis-based artist. Folayan felt her Ferguson project needed the perspective of someone inside the local community. Davis, already at work documenting the protests, was skeptical of media from outside St. Louis, but found Folayan an exception in her ability to empathize with the community; he was also persuaded to work together by her argument that perspectives of women were critical to telling the story of the protests.