As well as filming in the US, the documentary's creator, Dunedin film company NHNZ, has interwoven shots from several Dunedin locations.
The locations include a pile of rubble at the Milburn cement works in Burnside, the fire training room at the Dunedin Central Fire Station and a city hotel room.
The Dunedin scenes would be interspersed with actual footage and computer-generated effects to recreate the stories of 11 survivors of the day 19 al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial aeroplanes and used them to kill themselves and almost 3000 others, series producer Alan Hall said yesterday.
The documentary is scheduled to screen in the United States on September 11, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack.
"We've been able to produce some very elaborate recreations ... I'm very excited by our work creatively and editorially. I think it is going to be a powerful piece of television."
The terrorists flew two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and another into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. More than 2940 people were killed, including 836 firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel.
"I am amazed at what we have been able to create. We have captured the intensity of the day.
And we've done it all without a feature film budget."
Mr Hall travelled to the US to interview the survivors, seven who were at the World Trade Centre and four who were at the Pentagon.
Most of the Pentagon survivors had not spoken publicly of their experiences before, he said.
The documentary would not only show what happened to them on the day but the psychological impact since.
For most, that had been "immense and quite crippling", he said.
One survivor, a firefighter who helped save more than 100 people at the World Trade Centre, had not returned to work.
The two-hour documentary was commissioned last year by leading US-based cable and satellite television network A&E, which reaches more than 85 million homes in the US and Canada.
Getting the commission was a result of the work NHNZ had done on the long-running A&E show I Survived, Mr Hall said.
Since 2007, NHNZ had produced 65 episodes of the popular show and the 9/11 documentary would screen as a special in the series.
"I am chuffed and honoured they have chosen a New Zealand company to make a documentary about such an important and historic US event over a US company," Mr Hall said.
No New Zealand television network had picked up the I Survived series, Mr Hall said.
