The film was born when director Rolf de Heer opened his office refrigerator door and saw 20,000 feet of unexposed film stock. This is when the idea came to him to make a silent film and he knew then what his team were going to do next.
The film was shot in Adelaide, South Australia and its environs. One original silent clip shot featured in this silent movie and was edited into it. Early in the film there is an actual black-and-white 1900s exterior of Adelaide from real life actuality footage in the early 20th Century when silent films reigned.
The film was originally going to be shot using an original hand-wound silent movie camera. However, this was prevented due to technical problems. Old cameras are not able to process modern film stock so a modern camera was used. However, the earliest film lenses would not fit a modern camera so later lenses were used. However, the director was able to achieve some silent movie filmmaking technique: a hand-cranking mechanism could be adapted to a modern camera.
The idea of having Tiberius the dog in the film came when actor Paul Blackwell mentioned that he had a madcap dog. This canine, called Reg, had an obsession with balls, and this was factored into the script.
In keeping with the tradition of silent movies, no exterior shoots utilized artificial lighting.