There may be plenty of blood spilled in the upcoming Saw VI, but in a downtown Toronto hotel, no one's really spilling anything, whether it's bodily fluids or movie secrets. Here, the Saw VI cast and crew are trying to remain tight lipped on major plot details and, of course, Jigsaw's devious traps. Nonetheless, we're applying a little torture of our own, and getting production designer Tony Ianni to hint at what fans of the horror franchise can expect.

What's most challenging about the Saw franchise, particularly the sixth instalment?

Saw is a challenge from the day you first read the script. When you walk into the office, you have to make sense of where we are going to put all the characters, what we are going to do with them, and how we are going to tell the story. As the production designer, I've worked with the director to make sure all the elements we do come together. This one has been easier in some ways. It has a great storyline, we can follow the characters very easily through the whole script, and by the time we get to the end everything makes sense. The challenges are always about coming up with new ideas and making the traps as interesting as possible. We always want the audience to be surprised.

Saw is a bit of a machine, with a 30-day shoot and then having to crank it out for the same year.

That makes us all work that much harder, and in some ways that helps us. With a major motion picture like Saw, you find there's never enough time and that everything is always tied together. Every time we open a new set, there's always a lot of tension, everybody is a little nervous that the traps are going to work properly, and are going to operate the way they are supposed to. Doing our job properly in the art department means the actors should feel they are actually in a trap. It makes them act more and bring more to the screen. We want what they are in to actually be scary for them, and it worked really well for Scott Patterson. There were two traps in particular; the one with the cube and water and the last one with the crushing walls. There was literally a camera, him, this system, stunt people, and they were working in a room where the walls are closing in to a two-foot, eight-inch space. Everybody was feeling cramped, and it helped Scott bring that to the screen.

How far in advance do you develop the traps? Because, in actuality, they really can be lethal.

We go to great lengths to make them not dangerous. For example, in Saw V, that pendulum was really swinging above the person. It actually dropped on camera and did what it was supposed to do. That was probably one of the most fearful times in production because there was this big piece of metal hanging above the actor and you can only do so much to ensure his safety; things can happen. This year, we had a couple of people in a trap, and I thought it could go wrong. It didn't though. We did what we had to do to make sure it wasn't harmful, but there's always a risk.

There are more traps in this sequel than ever before. Did that add any pressure for you?

Yeah, that always makes it more difficult. Director Kevin Greutert was really good this year. We've bounced some ideas around and kind of opened the doors for Jigsaw a little bit. We went backwards in some ways. In Saw IV specifically, we brought the scale down and made it more personal as opposed to the grand scale of things. We worked on a couple of ideas early on to go away from where Jigsaw has been in the past and came up with some neat ideas this year. One in particular is going to surprise the audience. It's a little different than what Jigsaw has done before.

What makes a good trap for you?

For us, we try to make the audience feel the pain in some way. When it becomes too grand, viewers have a disassociation. The thing with the wrists and needle trap is everybody knows what it feels like. Everyone knows what one needle feels like so when you have 50 sticking into you… What we are trying to do this year is bring the traps back to a smaller scale, where people can understand what it feels like. Ultimately, we want the audience to understand what it would be like having a broken arm or a twisted leg. That makes more sense to people than something out of the realm of possibility.

Was there an aesthetic you were aiming for?

David Armstrong has been very consistent with the overall scale of lighting. The traps are going to look a little newer; they aren't quite as rusty or old as in the past. We've cleaned them up a little bit. A lot of things in Saw actually do what they are supposed to. When we shoot inserts of our traps, they have to function. We've been really lucky with our trap builders. If I draw something, they just know how to build it.

Is there one trap in VI that you found particularly complicated to execute?

The funny thing is the one that becomes the most challenging was the one I didn't think would be. It wasn't really part of the overall trap; it was getting all the actors into the trap or to be a part of it. There are a couple of really good ones. One trap has a lot of mechanisms that function and work. The set that I like the most is the simplest kind of trap. It's about a very personal trap that the person has to wear and it happens really fast. That one went well.

One would imagine having a single victim in a trap would be much easier than having a group in a large contraption like in Saw V.

Yeah, the issue last year was moving people from room to room. Each room had to become the trap. This year, we find our people in the trap already which works better for us and the storyline. We start the scenes with them already in danger, and the peril is apparent to the audience. The traps are still bigger than in the original Saw, but it was nice to start them in those.