Zerks’ Log chronicles the voyage of a doomed spaceship Venturi 553.

Zerks’ Log is one of the most impressive puppetry web series I’ve seen. It’s an 18 episode series (the season is currently 11 episodes in) about Captain Zerks Ganymedewski and his ship the Venturi 553, which disappeared without a trace. The story is told through videos from the lost spaceship’s “black box” that feature Zerks fretting about his second-in-command, pondering his love life and making otherwise trivial, humdrum observations, totally unaware that he’s doomed.

This is a great example of how to design a show around the limitations most web shows face. The character of Zerks is kind of elaborate and created through a combination of animatronics and special FX makeup worn by actor Ben Alpi, but the show is shot entirely on a very simple set (it’s just a desk, a chair and a green screen). There’s obviously an enormous amount of post production and effects work that goes in to creating something like this, but if you have the time, the know-how and access to the right equipment you could easily produce a show like Zerks Logs for just a few hundred dollars.

Via NewTeeVee Station.