Hollywood routinely spends as much money marketing their movies as producing them. For the low-or-no-budget project, this rule of thumb translates more into effort than dollars. A good example is the promotion for the documentary “Affected,” which presents the story of a small business owner who lost over 90% of his revenue when Covid-19 hit America. Frustrated and broke, he embarked on a journey to explore how the pandemic impacted others suffering the same fate. In the following interview, the film’s co-director Artem Koker explains how he and his team got nearly 100,000 views of the “Affected” trailer  plus a million impressions on all the major social media.  They reached people in more than fifty countries. Although this project was not shot on a phone, the promotional tools and techniques can be used by any aspiring mobile filmmaker.

Interview with Artem Koker

MobileMovieMaking: What’s your role in this project?

Koker: I co-directed and -co-produced the film with Nathan Cushing. We’re the founders of Arazo Media, located in Northern Virgina.

MobileMovieMaking: A lot of indie filmmakers—especially first-times like you— give little thought to promoting their movies. What motivated you to make this big effort?

Koker: When you’re putting so much time and energy and effort into a big project, it almost feels like a total waste if you don’t go above and beyond in the promotion side of it. If you’re spending weeks and months or even years working on a film and then nobody sees it, it just feels like a shame. I want it also to be a successful project because I want to use it as a stepping stone to produce more features in the future and get better funding. I really believe that every filmmaker should have a solid strategy when it comes to making a film beginning to end. From the initial inception of the idea all the way to where you want it to be and how much impact you want it to generate.

MobileMovieMaking: So what was the first step?

Koker: We started by having the entire team share everything we knew about the project using our social media: Facebook (Stories and Groups); Instagram (Stories, IGTV, IG Reels); LinkedIn; Tumblr;Whatsapp;  and blogs. We also encouraged them to send direct messages to friends, family and their own followers. Wherever we were online, we would paste links to the trailer. Plus we encouraged everyone to add calls to action in every post—inviting people to comment and share.

MobileMovieMaking: What was the time frame for this? How long did the effort last?

Koker: About four months now and still going. I’d say the promotional side doesn’t really end until you sell the project.

MobileMovieMaking: All that sounds like a lot of work.

Koker: It definitely is and honestly it was only possible because everyone is working together.

MobileMovieMaking: Who did the team consist of?

Koker: I directed and did most of the editing. Nathan Cushing and I co-produced it and Sohrab Jafarzadeh was our main cinematographer /2nd editor. Victor Danos was also a major help with b-cam and a lot of the behind the scenes shots. Danos and Jay Ahn also helped with some of the editing initially as well. Lastly I guess I’m the one that’s leading the marketing /promotion side of it, but it takes everyone working together to really push it out.

MobileMovieMaking: OK, what was the next step?

Koker:  Getting certified on IMDb.

MobileMovieMaking: What did it take to get certified, and why was that important?

Koker: It’s mostly just a very technical process and takes a lot of time, patience and more patience. Took me several weeks of going back and forth with customer support to figure out what I was doing wrong while submitting and then eventually I kind of just became really used to the interface and everything went smoothly from there.

MobileMovieMaking: And then?

Koker: We publicized the project on our official website, FilmFreeway, all over social and in various news outlets.

MobileMovieMaking: Isn’t FilmFreeway mainly for entering festivals? If so, how does that relate to promotion?

Koker: It’s an extra piece that most people miss because you can make your project public and add a ton of data to it so people can find it not only on FilmFreeway but also on google and other outlets. Plus it’s easier to share it if you don’t have an official website.

MobileMovieMaking: That seems to cover the no-cost part of promotion. What about paid advertising?

Koker: I did a lot of experimentation with YouTube ads in the past so I wanted to try something similar to generate a lot of impact. I ran it all through Google to create more awareness for the project as a whole. I did a lot of testing initially with some other videos we’ve worked with before and I was able to carve a good niche that we could then replicate for our trailer and at the end of the day we generated over a million impressions, 55,000 views and 1,200 hours of watch-time across the globe.

MobileMovieMaking: Can you tell us how much this kind of effort costs?

Koker: That all depends on the mission and goal that you’re trying to achieve. Every project is different and the cost as well as the specific settings will vary based on the type of video you have and what you want. Whether it’s views, clicks, or both from specific regions or more targeted and laser focused. So some things might work for one project, may not work for another. Another thing is that Google constantly updates stuff so prices can increase and the original niche you had, may no longer work as well and you have to modify it and continue experimenting to find something better. Advertising is an art.

MobileMovieMaking: In the end, did this have a financial benefit?

Koker: That’s what we’re working on next. Sales and distribution. It’s a big beast and having good numbers is a really critical component if you want your project to succeed.

MobileMovieMaking: Are you open to having people reach out to you for more?

Koker: Yeah of course, I can actually give you all the IG profiles of our team. We’re all just regular guys that are working hard towards the same goal. We love sharing so if there’s anything else we can help anyone out with, we’re definitely open to it.  Our Instagram pages are Artem Koker, Nate (our producer), Sohrab (our DP /Colorist), and Vic (B-Cam / BTS).

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For more on Arazo and their documentary “Affected: The Story of US,” visit their website.