Like all independent filmmakers, Helmut Kobler has more moxie than money. And he knows how first-time directors struggle to get any consideration. So when Kobler began working on his sci-fi short “Radius,” his marketing ideas were as much a part of pre-production as casting and storyboards.

“Working in the video game industry,” says Kobler, “I learned that if you don’t have marketing buzz when a game comes out, you’re in trouble. So I applied the same lesson to my film. There are thousands of people who want to be directors, and doing a short film is one way to rise out of the crowd. But the key is to get your film noticed. So from the start I was trying to find ways to make the film newsworthy.”

The savvy director worked the image machine. He gave professionally-designed flyers to prospective actors and crew when the film was little more than an idea. He invested in traditional hand-drawn storyboards to convey the look he was after with a flair not normally seen in low-budget projects. And he exercised the media by announcing each milestone, such as the hiring of cinematographer Philip Timme (“Independence Day”) and actor Matt McCoy (“L.A. Confidential”). “We looked for any excuse to generate a press release,” says Kobler with a laugh.

Kobler built a website where fans could follow the work-in-progress and watch mini-movies on location. And, most notably, he used his Mac-based moviemaking platform, featuring Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro on a PowerBook, to create a companion DVD that serves as an informative 26-chapter course in indie filmmaking.

“It made sense to film what we’d be going through during the actual shoot. A friend who had never held a videocam agreed to go with us to Death Valley, and I taught him the camera the day we left.”

A Website for Fans

Kobler worked to generate interest in his project by offering a peek backstage. “I like seeing behind-the-scenes stuff myself,” he says, “so I decided to let people watch the making of the movie as it happened, on the Internet.” The director garnered coverage for his movie and the making-of website in “MovieMaker,” “Hollywood Reporter,” scifi.com, Macromedia’s “site of the week” feature and QuickTime News.

Site visitors quickly signed up for a free subscription, and before long 1,800 people were receiving regular news about the making of “Radius.” Eventually, the director also marketed the finished DVD to his subscriber list.

“We’d push whatever was new to them,” says Kobler. “During pre-production, it was daily text diaries, digital still photos and a production blog.” Eventually, he decided to take the site a step further. “When I saw how much people responded,” he says, “it made sense to film what we’d be going through during the actual shoot. A friend who had never held a videocam agreed to go with us to Death Valley, and I taught him the camera the day we left.”

Soon the short movies of cast and crew making the film took their place alongside the text and stills on the website. Visits to the site, which averaged about 1,000 unique hits a day during pre-production, tripled when Kobler began posting his mini-movies.

Guerilla Film School

“When I realized we had all that great footage,” says Kobler, “it occurred to me to make a DVD of every step in the process, from casting to publicity, and package it with the film to help it stand out.” The result is “Guerilla Film School,” a making-of “Radius” DVD narrated by Kobler, who offers practical explanations of every stage — and unvarnished stories about what went wrong (actors quitting at the 11th hour, heat stroke, grenade props stolen from the back of the truck).

Kobler understands the need to reach out to the public. “You can’t just say, ‘I have a sci-fi film,’ and that’s your message,” he sighs. “There are too many blockbusters out there. But by sharing the story behind the story, we gave our project some marketing appeal.”

Next page: Making “Guerilla Film School”