As far as leaning on practical effects for time inversion goes, that’s not surprising given Nolan’s love for the tangible over digital wizardry, which is also evidenced by how he blew up a plane for Tenet.
During his interview with Collider, Crowley also mentioned that he had to read the Tenet script five times in order to understand the script’s intricacies, and that he and Christopher Nolan wanted to top themselves by traveling to seven countries to film Tenet, having previously gone to two countries and five countries for Interstellar and The Dark Knight Rises, respectively.