The Impact Producer Advantage
📚Production Solutions: Strategies for Identifying and Connecting With Your Audience
Whenever anyone shares their logline or describes a passion project, I always ask them, “who is your audience for this?”
You might be surprised by how many creatives can’t answer this question, because they are focused on fulfilling their personal goals rather than thinking about who may actually pay to watch what they made.
Luckily, if you don’t know who you are creating content for, there are people out there who make a living helping creators connect early with potential audiences.
They are called impact producers.
“As an impact producer, my specialty lies in setting the strategy and big picture execution of the film’s outreach and engagement work to create positive social change in the world,” said Simone Pero, founder of For Impact Productions.
Pero has worked to build an audience for several high-profile projects, including Jennifer Fox’s The Tale starring Laura Dern; Matt Heineman and Susan Froemke’s documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare; and, most recently, Lilly starring Patricia Clarkson as the worker who sued her employer for pay equity.
“With these films, we tackled issues from the global child sexual abuse epidemic to the country’s healthcare system and to gender equity,” said Pero, who also teaches filmmaking at Stony Brook University.
“My work with clients entails designing and implementing strategies to educate, raise awareness and inspire action on social issues by the film’s ecosystem of audiences, the media, stakeholders and distribution partners.”
“Whether documentary, narrative, television series, theatre performance or art exhibit, there is an opportunity for social impact efforts to augment your release into the world and to be infused into any externally-facing distribution plan,” Pero said.
I asked Pero how a content creator might find an impact producer.
“In addition to good old fashioned research and networking, there is a wonderful organization and community called Global Impact Producers Alliance with impact producers from around the world.” Via the alliance, “you can search for impact producers in a variety of ways, such as by issue, geographic location and expertise.
Pero’s advice for producers: “Partnerships are your golden ticket.” “Finding and aligning your project with a wide range of people, organizations, brands, and communities has the potential to bring in a myriad of benefits from financing, to reach, to credibility and exposure.”
Producer and director Zeva Oelbaum and her creative collaborator, Sabine Krayenbühl (co-director and editor), developed a strategy on their own to engage fans of dance and choreography for their latest film: Obsessed with Light. The festival award-winning documentary film–about the American inventor and choreographer Loïe Fuller–was produced by Between the Rivers Productions. (Disclosure: I produced one of the interviews for the film with a choreographer in Paris.)
“We built audiences in a variety of ways and we focused on the broadest possible demographic who might be interested in our film,” said Oelbaum. “First, we were very conscientious about building our contact list and sending out newsletters with information about our subject. We begin adding contacts of the people that we came across while researching or fundraising.”
Oelbaum said they applied and received a NEH production grant and “the process of making that application, although it was a ton of work, was really helpful in connecting us with a community of people who are interested in the subject.”
“We also did a Kickstarter, both to raise money and to help build our community,” she explained. “What we did specifically for dance was to apply for a grant from Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, and we were chosen to show a trailer of the film many years before we completed it.”
Winning that Dance on Camera grant resulted in the film being chosen as the closing night film at Dance on Camera festival last year.
“When we did our theatrical release, Dance on Camera was incredibly helpful in helping us promote our theatrical release because we were alumni of the festival.”
Another path to engaging their potential audience was working with an executive producer who “is really talented with social media and built our Instagram following and Facebook pages with frequent postings.”
“We included groups connected with dance in our fundraising campaigns and also specifically targeted individuals known to fund dance, but we didn’t have any luck on that score,” said Oelbaum.
“We discovered that dance films are notoriously hard to fund. Fortunately, we never limited ourselves to thinking that the film would only appeal to dance aficionados. We had to think through the many different demographics that would want to see our film and pursue all of them.”
Ultimately, the project received $325,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, $22,500 from the New York State Council on the Arts and $35,000 from private foundations. “The film was also co-produced by ZDF/ARTE so that helped financially. Our film cost over $1 million and the majority came from individuals.”
Oelbaum and Krayenbuhl’s promotional and fundraising efforts paid off when they signed a distribution deal with Film Movement, and the filmmakers enjoyed several sold-out screenings at the Quad Cinema in New York City.
“The film initially had a one week run (four screenings a day) at the Quad and it was extended for two additional weeks. During that time, we had five Q&As (many sold out) with special guests and moderators who also have followings. The film was then in LA in December and is having a lot of screenings all over.”
Building an audience for your creative project requires a multifaceted approach. Identifying your target audience early on is crucial, and collaborating with impact producers can significantly enhance your outreach and engagement efforts. By strategically engaging with potential audiences through various channels, including social media, grants, festivals and community partnerships, creators can increase visibility for their work and generate buzz before a single ticket is sold.
