How and why we built our audience

The INVISIBLE NATION Distribution / NonDē Exploration Case Study continues..., Pt. 3

Vanessa was curious about the subject and was well prepared — but she wasn’t the expert she is today. Vanessa studied Mandarin in Beijing, China at Princeton, as well as in Taipei, Taiwan and at Middlebury in the States. She had worked at a think tank on international affairs. The first feature documentary she directed was focused on the US/China relationship, but even then she knew that Taiwan needed its own film for us all to better complete the story.

But we also knew we weren’t going to get much support from the film industry’s corporate powers. Disney and Apple aren’t shy letting others know they won’t make a film that tells the truth about China. We thus knew that we were not going to need to get our initial support from the film industry but most likely from the Taiwanese diaspora, despite neither of us being Taiwanese ourselves. Our film was going to display a dynamic democracy and the challenges they face from all sides — but there isn’t a place that one can go to fund or distribute such a timely film.

We suspected that the only way we could get the movie made or seen was going to be through collaboration with what would eventually become our audience. Some were already organized, but not all. And we needed them all to move beyond audience and evolve into community. How were we going to do that? We didn’t have a clue really. But we recognized that the first step was identifying the audiences and we were willing to explore as we went along. We didn’t need to know everything in order to get started — and hopefully then do it well.

Looking back now, I think we did well but certainly not just because of our efforts, and primarily because of the passion and commitment of our audience. Our audience truly became our collaborators and have kept the film going strong, now into our third year.

The first grant for the film came from The Compton Foundation and was focused on “Women, Peace, and Security” – a rubric that Vanessa is fascinated with and studies seriously. Having gained access to Taiwan’s first female President, it was also clear that this rubric was a major theme of the film, and thus those that cared about it were another key audience for us. It also aligns well with the topic Feminist Leadership in general, which definitely has some popularity in certain circles.

When it came to potential audience identification, Taiwan’s geopolitical predicament – stuck between China and the US – and its efforts to be recognized as the flourishing democracy that it is, clearly would be attractive to those that perceived democracy as under threat. When we started those folks were harder to spot, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as China’s deepening “friendship” with Russia, woke that sector up a bit and brought them to the forefront.

Finally, the twin film industry subsets of the “truth to power” doc maker and lovers, and the Indie Film Business followers were going to be audience pockets that we would depend on.

So that’s…

the audiences we identified as potentially “INVISIBLE NATION” curious:

1. The Taiwanese Diaspora

2. Women, Peace, & Security followers

3. Feminist Leadership/Empowerment curious

4. Global Democracy advocates

5. Doc & “Indie” Film Business fans

But how would we reach them? How would we get them involved? How could we keep them involved? We didn’t have the answer when we started, but we got lucky.

just turn the page and there you are.