Gareth Edwards left the most emotional scenes until the end so Madeleine Voyles could build a strong relationship with John David Washington. "Madeleine's a very quiet, shy girl," Edwards said. "It's really hard to become her friend. I tried the entire movie, and I think she let me a little bit in, but not fully. But [John David] cracked the code and became like a big brother to her--and her best friend." The two were "inseparable," Edwards said. After wrapping a take, when Washington would walk off set looking for some quiet time alone--"trying to keep in that headspace before you do the next take"--Voyles would simply "run after him, hold his hand, and start talking about a toy she really likes. And he's such a sweetheart, he'd go down to her level and start getting really excited about what she was saying."
Gareth Edwards tried to make this film as traditionally as possible. In preparation for filming, he visited a virtual reality studio and was confused by seeing a poster explaining the process of filmmaking on the wall. Upon inquiring why such an obvious poster was on the wall, Edwards was shocked to find out that it was over 100 years old. Edwards then decided to take a different approach and talked the studio into letting him film without green screen, and filming on-location, using smaller cameras, using guerrilla-filming techniques, employing Industrial Light and Magic and then adding in the sci-fi elements later.
The film was shot on the Sony FX3, an entry-level full-frame cinema camera.
On September 19, 2023, Edwards revealed that he initially planned on having a company specialising in AI-generated music replicate Zimmer's style of music. Although the process gave him satisfying results, Edwards instead chose Zimmer to originally score the film. The soundtrack was digitally released by Hollywood Records on September 29, 2023.
Many of the supporting performers and background actors seen in the film were from near where the shooting was taking place. In Nepal, people from a little town by the Buddhist temple were used as actors. "Some of the kids agreed to shave their heads and play some of the robot monks," Gareth Edwards said. "It was kind of surreal. They all got really excited about being in a Hollywood movie." Rather than shoot in a studio, against green screens, and then creating the sets and landscapes with pricey CG effects, Edwards decided it would be more cost-effective--and more visually compelling--to film on location in Asia. The production visited eight different countries, where they handpicked each location based on the scenery and the script needs. "We cherry-picked: the volcanoes of Indonesia, Buddhist temples in the Himalayas, ruins of Cambodia, and floating villages," Edwards said, listing just a few of the film's many stunning locales.