"33" was director Michael Rymer's first television episode. He accepted the job without reading the script, saying that based on his writing experience, "33" went well beyond his expectations and excited him. Bear McCreary originally composed the musical theme "Boomer Theme" for this episode; it was later expanded for use with the Athena character, before becoming the "Hera Theme" for the character Hera Agathon in the fourth season episode, "Islanded in a Stream of Stars". Joel Ransom was the director of photography for the miniseries, but when Eick learned he was unavailable for the series, he turned to Stephen McNutt, with whom he had worked on "American Gothic". In the interim, McNutt had moved on to shooting in high-definition video; this was fortuitous for the production team because, while Ransom had filmed the miniseries on 35 mm film, the production team was switching to high-definition video for the series.