In 2013, still a film student, all of the remaining residents refused to speak to the director / producer Joe Sapienza for the film. About five additional families also turned down the documentary. At that point, Sapienza's approach for the film was to turn it into a highly political one focusing more on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. However, a couple months later, it wasn't until another film student whose grandfather, the late John Coddington happen to live in Centralia; and her mother used to live off of Locust Street. Sapienza approached her and she got a hold of her family along with their former Centralia neighbors and met the crew out in Centralia to film four interviews in April 2014. As a result, the film took on a more personal down to earth approach and changed it's theme, setting up the stage for the extended feature later on.
During the first try in January of shooting, a strange man approached some of the crew thinking they were from a Paranormal television show. The man hung out at the cemetery at night and talked about seeing ghosts. The man's story was recorded by one of the sound technicians and is unknown who he was or where he was from.
The documentary was inspired by one of Sapienza's friends who told him about Centralia back in 2005. After reading Dave DeKok's book on the town, he decided to try to film a short about the town in 2013.
The film took 18 hours to export due to a Codec error in the editing software causing interviews and some photos to flip upside down and turn multiple colors.
A clean-up event was held in October 2014 after Sapienza noticed all of the trash that was dumped in the back woods of Centralia. More former residents were interviewed as a result including Harold Mervine who lives in the borough.