The entire show was shot on green screen and composited into digital sets; in all, 14 digital sets were created and the entire first season was storyboarded and planned out using these sets and digital mannequins to represent the actors (who had not yet been cast). Every camera angle was carefully measured and recorded, allowing the filmmakers to recreate each digital shot and match the lighting on set months later. Over 300 individual camera angles were shot, every one of them a VFX shot requiring green screen replacement, atmospheric elements, and blending.
Shot and finished independently in Pueblo, CO by a small team on a budget totaling less than $20,000.
The filmmakers treated the effects-heavy series like an animated movie, breaking the live action footage into pieces and stacking them up in layers along with the digital elements in front of a virtual camera. This allowed dynamic camera moves to be created in post using what were originally locked-off tripod shots. In many scenes, actors were shot separately, sometimes months apart, and composited together into one seamless image.
All the effects work was done in house - literally. Series creator Michael Gates designed and built the digital sets and spacecraft models using a custom built PC in his basement.