He also points to the interactive pop-up windows that appear in the special “behind the scenes” section of the “Radius” DVD. “When they pop up, you just hit enter on your remote and you can jump out of the movie and see how we made the scene you were watching,” he explains. “You see our crew setting up lights, getting the actors in place and so on.” Notes Kobler, “Being able to build state-of-the-art features like multiple tracks and pop-up windows myself, as a single indie filmmaker, is pretty cool testimony to DVD Studio Pro.

Finally, Kobler appreciates being able to produce the DVD-9 format. “Most casual authors generate DVD-5s they burn one at a time on their computer,” he explains. “But DVD-5s aren’t 100% compatible with every player. So for a professional product that will be replicated on a large scale, you want to use DVD-9. Not only does it hold twice as much high-quality video, but it’s compatible with every player out there. Authoring my own DVD-9s, just like a Hollywood studio, is a very big thing.”

“We built our sets and props using lumber from Home Depot and scrap we found at salvage yards. We made the soldiers’ costumes out of cheap painter overalls and fishing vests we bought at a thrift store.”

Death Valley Showdown

Kobler’s plot centers on spaceship pilot Mariella Dain. Shot down behind enemy lines, Dain has one last chance to attack Gemini. In order to wipe her foe’s key power center off the map, she must arm the warhead on her ship — and try to escape the blast in only 30 minutes. As the clock ticks down Dain returns to her ship, and the live bomb, for a showdown with the deadly force that threatens to destroy humanity’s last chance of survival.

Scouting the cheapest possible locations that would offer an other-worldly backdrop for his battles between good and evil, Kobler chose Death Valley. Production delays pushed the shoot into May and June, when midday temperatures reached 120° F. The 10 days of principal photography were an ordeal for all. “A few crew members fainted from heat exhaustion,” admits Kobler, “but everyone was okay and the extreme conditions actually helped bond the team together.”

Red Bull + Tabasco = Grenade Prop

“Radius” benefits from expert Hollywood hands. Kobler credits its stylish look to Timme, who filmed the dramatic shot of the White House blowing up in “Independence Day.” “We couldn’t believe our luck!” exults Kobler. “He liked us and he thought what we were trying to do was interesting. I mean, he obviously didn’t do it for the money. Philip gave us instant credibility and helped us recruit other people. Once we had him on board it all kind of snowballed — we even got a story in ‘The Hollywood Reporter.’”

Sound design was created by a team of young interns at Danetracks, the Hollywood studio that won an Academy Award for its work on “The Matrix.” Notes Kobler, “They were able to draw from all the sounds in their huge, professional sound library.”

Despite these known talents, the bare-bones project had little in common with glamorous Hollywood. “We built our sets and props using raw lumber from Home Depot and scrap we found at salvage yards,” says Kobler. “We made the soldiers’ costumes out of cheap painter overalls and fishing vests we bought at a thrift store and dyed in the washing machine. And when our grenade prop was stolen, we made a new one by spray painting a Red Bull soft drink can and using the top from a Tabasco sauce bottle as the detonator.”

Homegrown Heroes

It’s not surprising that the filmmakers Helmut Kobler most admires worked their way up from humble origins. “My heroes are the resourceful guys who started small and made their own films cheaply — people like Robert Rodriguez, who made ‘El Mariachi’ for $7,000 and went on to do the ‘Spy Kids’ movies. And Sam Raimi, who used credit cards to make the 1981 cult film ‘The Evil Dead’ and later directed ‘Spider Man.’”

Kobler draws inspiration from his childhood favorites. “I grew up on ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Alien,’ ‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Star Trek,’” he says. “As a kid, I always gravitated to sci-fi. I wanted to make a film that felt like it was not part of ordinary experience. With sci-fi you get to create something we don’t know about. It’s the hope of exploration, the promise of new worlds.”