This project began as an idea to blend different directorial perspectives into a single short film, resulting in a product that would contain a mélange of voices and visions. Raphaël and Nicolás started by defining the structure as a single non-linear story, which would be told by bouncing back and forth in time as each character reveals his own experience, driving the story forward. The introduction of Ambra as a third director came with a revitalization of the characters in this structure: each of the characters' past would be linked in a way that explains how the future would unfold.

The first meetings of the three directors focused on adding flesh to this structure, which always revolved around the same basic core: the main character is leading a journey in search of a precious element, but ends up finding himself used as a tool by a higher power. The idea of tricking the audience into following an antihero who thinks of himself as in control of his future was too appealing for the directors to ignore, so the confidence game became the essence of their storytelling.

As it would be expected, the main character quickly became three separate entities - each portraying the vision of each director - linked by their need to perform a task. The environment soon took the shape of an auction house, where the search for simple money is replaced art pieces and where the confidence game is best demonstrated in the act of in-house collusion. All three directors were fascinated with the idea that a group of people owning an auction house could trick their clients with an infiltrator subtly raising prices.

Inside this world the structure fit beautifully. Three owners of an auction house are involved in collusion - each representing the idea that each director had of an ultimate mastermind. Three small timers know about the scam and plan to beat them their own game, but they find themselves being manipulated by the owners, who used them as tools in a perfect plan to achieve their goal (which is to steal a valuable painting). The story became a game between 1, 2 and 3 (our protagonists, who are doomed to fail) and A, B and C (our antagonists, who have the perfect plan to lead 1, 2 and 3 to failure). The story was there, but it took an immense amount of late-night meetings and hundreds of drawings to understand what, exactly, was the plan of ABC and how it involved 123 as the perfect tools. The three directors had to create a plan as ABC and then play along as 123 to unfold it.

After many possibilities were considered and discarded, one idea remained: the link between ABC and 123 is a voice, a fictional character in this fictional world that leads the protagonists into failure and then disappears, leaving no trace behind him. This finally gave ABC the perfect plan and the three directors a solid base to start writing the script. Then, eventually, after many more late-night meetings where the piles of paintings became piles of script pages, the plan at last became ready to be put into action.