At 21, Coppola wrote the script for a short film called "The Peeper", a comedy about a voyeur who tries to spy on a sensual photo shoot in the studio next to his apartment. The young filmmaker found an interested producer who gave him $3,000 to shoot the film. He hired Playboy Playmate Marli Renfro to play the model and his friend Karl Schanzer to play the voyeur. With "The Peeper" finished, the still-unknown Coppola found that the cartoonish aspects of the film alienated potential buyers, who did not find the 12-minute short exciting enough to show in adult theaters.