During the preparation, director László Nemes, cinematographer Mátyás Erdély and production designer László Rajk made a pledge to stick to certain rules, or a "dogma", which included:
- The film cannot look beautiful.
- The film cannot look appealing.
- We cannot make a horror film.
- Staying with Saul means not going beyond his own field of vision, hearing, or presence.
- The camera is his companion, it stays with him throughout this hell.
Shot in the now unusual Academy aspect ratio of 1.375:1 to achieve a portrait-like narrow field of vision and to be close to the aspect ratio used in the 40s.
The film took five months of sound design, where human voices in eight languages were recorded and attached to the original recording of the production. Sound designer Tamás Zányi described the sound in the film "as a sort of acoustic counterpoint to the intentionally narrowed imagery".
The outside scenes were shot only with natural light.