The idea for 'Meal for One' first appeared in 1997. The story was inspired by a similar chain of events as seen in the film, happening to a friend of the writer / director, Mark Frost. This particular friend had rushed into buying a flat, which was advertised at a bargain price, and had unwittingly moved himself away from his base of friends.

The man soon sensed an increasing sense of isolation, which affected him in very noticeableways.Healways looked forlorn and never seemed to have a purpose - wandering everywhere without any sense of urgency, where before he always had energy and confidence. Luckily, his friends did not live as far away as the character of Chris in the film. But unluckily for the friends, they had to take the strain of his newfound worthlessness. Regularly having the man show up on their doorsteps.

Frost wondered what would happen if those friends weren't there to ease his 'cabin fever', and the character would be left to slowly disappear inside himself. This was the basis for the script.

The film was originally designed to be filmed on 8mm film using a cine-camera. But after a bad experience with that format filming in Cornwall in 1998, Frost decided to wait until he had recovered enough to face the evil Kodak mags again. In this time, Matt West had acquired a Canon XL-1 broadcast quality digital camera and 'Premiere' DV computer editing package. Once the hardware had been successfully tested, production of the film went ahead on Saturday the 17th of February 2001.