Puppet and set design
The building of puppets, costumes and sets entailed a year of intricately detailed and experimental work. For the film's characters, Lavis & Szczerbowski rejected traditional stop-motion puppet armatures and built aluminum wire skeletons by hand. It took seven months of alchemy: mixing silicon, latex and plaster to produce the hand-designed molds for the unique puppet bodies. The same level of intricacy and attention to detail went into costuming. The filmmakers worked with costume designer Lea Carlson and actress Laurie Maher, on whom Tutli was modelled. Tutli-Putli's red dress, stockings and gloves were crafted and dyed by hand, with the costumers scrounging scraps from flea markets and furriers to construct her signature hat and coat. To properly corrupt the look of the Thieves, their leather coats were buried in mud for over two weeks. All of the film sets were hand built: train interiors and exteriors rose from a pile of cardboard and miscellany salvaged and recycled from trash bins, surplus stores and hobby shops. Scale lighting kits were created out of miniature fluorescents pulled from the wreckage of a defunct martini bar, and lighting effects were achieved with smashed car mirrors found on the street outside the studio. Even the saturated skies glimpsed through the scuffed train windows are original oil paintings created for the film.