"Empire" was shot on ASA 400 Tri-X stock, push-processed to ASA 1000 to compensate for the dark conditions of filming. The push-processing gives the film a graininess that calls attention to the medium of the film stock itself during projection in a manner that Douglas Crimp compares to the way that ink in Warhol's silkscreen paintings is present as both blobs of ink and as part of the image. Each reel of the film contains a segment of film that was exposed to incidental light during processing, which may be evidence that the final work is unedited. The complete film consists of ten reels, each lasting approximately 48 minutes when projected in slow motion at 16 frames per second as specified by Warhol.