Jack was never allowed to see the puppet on set. When his character, Jonathan, first sees Richard in the film, it was the first time he had ever seen the puppet.
Due to budget constraints, Nyk Allen held pre-production for the film in less than 18 days.
Three days before principal photography, Ben and Nyk decided to film in a studio because they were unhappy with the room layouts for all of their on-location options.
It took four crew members to operate Richard! Rickey did the performance, his daughter Emily worked the hands, John did the animatronics/face and Matt was the puppet wrangler. The puppet wrangler makes sure these one of a kind puppets aren't damaged between takes, resets or breaks.
The spaceship in the opening of the film was a humidifier that Ben found at Goodwill. He and a few friends spent a day gluing pieces of toy airplanes and cardboard for texture. Then they layered paint to give it a rust finish. The VFX artist, Joel, added in smoke and lights in post production.