The Cabonauts is set in 2183AD, almost 200 years into the future. If you can look back to 1909, you can see how far we’ve come in such a short time, so looking forward it’s fun to guess at where we’ll be. In some cases I’ve been extrapolating on the realms science is currently exploring (cryogenics, nanotechnology, etc) and in others I’ve just …well, I’m having fun. It’s a world where the dead never die – and live on in Clone Brains. The taxicabs (Scarads – Space Cab Rider Deep Space) use matter transportation (its how the passengers get in and out of a cab that’s orbiting the planet) and their engines are made from awesome sauce (i.e. however the hell ships can fly that far and that fast which is still the stuff of dreams).

The Scarad’s dashboard is at once a mix of the futuristic and 1970’s looking sci-fi gadgets. That’s quite intentional as we’re trying to go for a late 70’s/early 80’s look. There’s buttons there to initiate the matter transportation, scanners that serve as radars and communication devices, an ashtray (some horrible habits will sadly never go away), two big coffee mugs courtesy of one of the set designer’s friends, and a glovebox that will see major action much later in the series.

CJ’s office orbits Titan but not the one of 2009. This one has been terra-formed – hence its green appearance. There’s also what looks like a binary code that runs across the top of her wall; it’s actually what the stock market looks like in 2183 and shows how the Cabonauts Inc is faring.
Lolita, the dispatch unit, is what I’ve dubbed “syntelligence” – seeing as how she’s synthetic intelligence (or A.I.). She is part of the Scarad’s software as well as being integrated into the central Cabonauts computer, so she’s omnipresent – she can be on as many dashboards and in as many Cabonauts Inc. offices as she wants all at the same time. We may have to watch out for Lolita as computer programs often become corrupt…

Later, around Ep5, a Cryogenics facility on Mars that’s been housing all the celebrities and world leaders of the 21st century (frozen moments before death, waiting for a cure) explodes leaving only one survivor. That person is starring as himself and we can’t wait to shoot it! Through him we’ll find out some more strange and wonderful things about 2183.

So never having produced anything on this scale, I needed a set designer. I put the word out via Facebook (status updates are your friend) and got a few leads. With our budget, however, it was never going to be easy. A couple of people bowed out immediately, one of them mentioning that a friend had worked on James Cameron’s latest film Avatar and had gotten a lot more than I was offering. I really had to suppress the laughter on that one; first off, it was a friend who’d gotten that gig, not her, and secondly, um, er, we’re not producing the most expensive film in the world ever. Then a recommendation led us to Kim Seff who turned out to be a dream; she came in brimming with ideas and could work within the budget!

She showed Paul and I some of the designs she’d come up with and I wound up going with a bit of two of them; retro mixed with futuristic. Me and Paul went out to a car junk yard where they charge you $2 just to get on the lot. The cheek! But it ensures you buy something otherwise you’ve wasted two dollars. We picked up various elements of dashboards from different cars and laid ‘em all out in the driveway.

Kim then began transforming the pieces she wanted, along with buying more like Car Seats and car radios, etc. My garage quickly became a workshop as Kim was tasked with not just creating the interior of the Scarad (the spacecab), but also dressing CJ’s desk (CJ is the CEO of the Cabonauts Inc) and creating elements that we’ll be using a fair amount of – clone brains. We’ve bought more yellow spray paint than should be allowed and I’ve had to keep my dog well away as he’d only go and lick it all. She’s also been wrapping the car seats in discarded rubber bicycle tires for a unique look. I can’t wait for it to be finished!
CJ’s desk came from ManiaTV – an online production company that, when they folded, had a fire sale. We picked up a couple of things including a massive desk they’d been using to shoot one of their shows with. It’s now being dressed up with a cab motif as well as monitors and keyboards, etc. And a place just for Grandma’s clone brain. (What??? More later. . .)

I’m going to be posting a video of some of the work she’s been doing, assisted massively by Paul, so you can see the humble origins of the set.