Political prisoner Jason Walters is dragged into the interrogation chamber.

The production was planning a big battle scene for the next day. There were existing props, but McDougall knew he could do better. "They had bought these plastic rifles from Wall Mart and had spray painted them black. I said, give them to me and let me fix them up and make them look like original props."

McDougall stayed up all night revamping half a dozen weapons. He had sworn to Jason that he would deliver the enhanced weapons to the Tomaric house first thing the next morning. The early visit startled Jason's mom, Mimi Tomaric. "I had no idea he was coming over," she confesses. "I opened the door and he said, 'Hi, I'm Greg McDougall. I'm here to give these to Jason.' I said thank you very much, took the box and closed the door. I am never ever rude to anyone, except that one time with poor Greg. I've been trying to make it up to him ever since."

“Everybody who sees this movie absolutely raves about it!” —John Lanigan, #1 morning show host WMJI

The redone weapons impressed Tomaric. "What he did blew me away. They were beautifully crafted pieces. From that point on, he started doing more and more for the movie. Before we knew it, he was doing all the makeup prosthetics, all the pyrotechnics, all the art design, all the costumes, everything. His impact on the film was so great that we opted to go back and re-shoot a significant portion of the film because it didn't have the Greg McDougall look."

With the heart of a true perfectionist, Jason continued to want to make the movie better. McDougall and his assistant Cari Finken worked with Tomaric long after the movie had officially wrapped; tweaking smaller scenes and adding major special effects. Jason remembers, "We had this Styrofoam prop that we used a lot. We blew [it] up for one of the final scenes. It burned into oblivion. We took that as an omen that the film was complete."

One was shot entirely on a digital Sony VX-1000 camcorder. Tomaric beat George Lucas to the punch in filming an all-digital feature. Lucas intends to make the next two Star Wars sequels completely digital.

Mira is publically executed for crimes against society.

A dozen animation studios in the Cleveland area helped devise 450 digital special-effects shots for the movie. Trains, hovercrafts and entire cities were created through digital animation.

"I did a 3D shuttle that flies around throughout the entire movie," tells Jeff McCormack, a One animator. "Jason would give me what he shot through the camera for backplate, and we'd composite that in. He filmed a lot at Perry High School. In one scene, the shuttle is landing. It disappears behind some architecture. We had to composite it so it actually looks like this imaginary shuttle is going behind this real building."

Tomaric employed digital effects not only for fantastic action sequences and futuristic settings, but also in subtle ways that are not readily visible. Jason reveals, "We shot the outdoor opening sequence at several different times during the year. We used digital animation to make sure the colors and lights were consistent. Sometimes we would even do sky replacement. If we were shooting outside and the sky was boring that day, we would replace it with something more interesting."

“He’s a genius; he took $20,000 and made a movie that looks like $20,000,000!” —Tim Taylor, Fox8 News Anchor

With the small budget of the film always a factor, the movie's technicians had to find inexpensive ways to make the film without compromising quality. Richard Korby, the movie's Production Audio Supervisor, made the decision to record the dialogue on mini-disc.

"The audio was recorded right to CD as we shot," Korby explains. "It's similar to recording on tape, but in a non-destructible format." The movie was able to field-test some microphones and recording equipment in advance due to Korby's working relationship with manufacturers. He regularly works as a freelance music producer. "We found new and interesting ways to record that in some ways are even better than the standards that are out there today."

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