Part of the studio sets were built in disused rooms of the legendary Wawilov Institute of Optics in Saint-Petersburg, where research on optical systems had been carried out since World War I. On the floor of the abandoned laboratories, the team found shards of experimental glass filters that cinematographer Sven Jakob-Engelmann attached in front of his lenses to enhance the dreamlike atmosphere of the film. Professor Igor Plaksin, a veteran VFX-artist who worked in the Lenfilm Studios since the 1980s, made special analog trick lenses at the director's request because Andreas Marschall wanted to use as few digital effects as possible.
Many of the flashbacks in black and white were shot on Fomapan analog Super-8 film.