TL: We knew that we can portray the original atmosphere of the graphic novel even if after we enriched the original sharp black and white drawing with the degree of grey and began experimenting with dismissing the filmed material into the background. The filming itself differed from a classic filmmaking in a way that the whole filmed material served as a guidance for the animation and a base for the postproduction. Expressive lighting, distinctive make-up, tonally adjusted decoration or the night scenes shot in the daylight -- all of these served one thing -- to provide the animators as much information as possible.

BD: What about the use of sound and music? 

TL: While working on the sound track of the film, we tried to minimize the differences between the sound and music, we wanted to make them the same compact part as the visuals. There are three songsused in the film, but they were composed for the film and are portrayed as the accompanying songs from the radio. These songs were sung by the contemporary singers and in the film we can hear them together with the news on the radio, that enhances the contemporary atmosphere. One of the songs is sung by Václav Neckář, who played the main role in Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains.

BD: What was it like directoring actors? 

TL: It was my first experince with real actors and it is important for me to mention the contribution of Miroslav Korobt, who was with the film from the very beginning and greatly contributed the creation of the character of Alois Nebel. While working with the actors, I didn't have any special requirements, I only tried to lead them towards the austerity and pragmatism.

BD: What was the post process like and working with your editor? What were the editorial challenges? 

TL: The communication with the editor Petr Říha was more in the imaginative level in the beginning, we talked more than actually edited. The filmed material served us as the background. We edited rough cut three months after the shooting, which was base for the animations. Animations were inserted into this rough cut, they were superimposed, the backgrounds were added and this way the very special layer of the film was created, but at the same time it was very important to preserve maximum imagination and keep the general conception of the film. This timeline was gradually complemented, re-edited during the entire process of postproduction and basically we saw the final version of the film only in the end of the postproduction process. We saw it in the moment when it was impossible to make any other steps and we were left to hope that the initial intuition was correct.

BD: What are your favorite moments?  

TL: There are repeating shots of various characters looking out of window -- they see what the viewer can't. The viewer, on the other hand, can imagine what it might be and everyone sees different scenes. I, too, like to just pause and look.

BD: What do you like best about the film?

TL: I am very glad that the final cut is quiet and austere and I hope that it might someday inspire somebody.

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Bill Desowitz is former senior editor of AWN and editor of VFXWorld. He has a new blog, Immersed in Movies (www.billdesowitz.com), and is currently writing a book about the evolution of James Bond from Connery to Craig, scheduled for publication this year, which is the 50th anniversary of the franchise.