Why Can't Your Documentary Find an Audience? l Deep Dive on Ep. 284

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[Christian Taylor]

But here is the part that is so awful,

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[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

it's almost funny. My father had

hitchhiked to church,

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[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

as he told me.

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[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

In actuality, he had caught a ride with

an elderly woman living in

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[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

the same building who has dementia,

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[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

badly as he does, maybe worse,

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[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

who somehow still has a driver's license

and still out there driving.

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[Documentary First title card]

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If you make things and send them out into

the world,

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films, podcasts,

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you have a small business that you're

trying to keep alive,

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then this podcast is for you. Because

there is one ingredient that

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I believe decides whether people stay with

what you've made.

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And it's not some sort of trick and it's

not a bigger budget.

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I ran into it twice this month.

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Once in a conversation with a Dutch

filmmaker who made the most watched human

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interest documentary in his country's

history.

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And once very close to home, in my own

father's new apartment.

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By the end of this podcast, I think you'll

see that they are the same thing.

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And I think it might change how you build

an audience for whatever it

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is that you're trying to build.

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Now a few weeks ago, I sat down with

Jonathan de Jong Jonathan is a filmmaker

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out of the Netherlands, and his

documentary,

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Human Forever, is a wonder. It's about

dementia.

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And as I said, it became the most watched

human interest documentary

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in Dutch cinema history.

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I'm Christian Taylor, and today I want to

talk about one of the things that Jonathan

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says matters most.

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And why I've become convinced it is also

the quietest secret in filmmaking.

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But first let's take a listen to Jonathan.

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[Jonathan de Jong]

That really makes us feel that we don't

belong to anything or anybody anymore.

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[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

And to have a sense of not belonging,

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[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

I think this is the most dangerous thing

when it comes to life.

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Jonathan spent several years filming

inside nursing homes all over the world.

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So when he talks about dementia,

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he is not talking about what he's learned

from a book.

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He is talking about what he's learned from

being up close and personal with people

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living with dementia.

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And here's the thing that surprised me.

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If you asked me what the worst part of

dementia was before

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my conversation with Jonathan,

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I would have said that it's the memory

loss,

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the forgetting, losing the people that you

love while they're still standing right

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in front of you.

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But Jonathan taught me that the diagnosis

is not the worst part.

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What he said, the people living with

dementia told him was the worst part.

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Is how they feel they were treated once

they have been diagnosed.

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You see, we get afraid.

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We don't know what to say. So we start

disconnecting from our loved ones.

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We talk about them instead of with them.

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And slowly our loved ones, I guess,

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stop feeling like they belong anywhere or

to anyone at all.

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This is how he put it.

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A sense of not belonging, he told me,

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is the most dangerous thing there is,

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because that is a moment a person starts

to feel like there is no point

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to their life anymore.

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I have been turning that over in my mind

ever since our interview.

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The most important ingredient in caring

for a human being is not medication.

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It's not a nicer building.

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It's not a bigger TV.

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It's a person still feeling like they

belong,

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still feeling like they're one of us.

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Hold on to that word belonging because I'm

going to come back to it

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in just a minute.

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Now I'm going to get personal for just a

second.

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Because this month, this stopped being

merely a podcast conversation for me.

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I've shared this before, my father has

dementia.

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And a few weeks ago,

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I went to visit him in Mississippi.

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Now I was supposed to pick him up for

church at 8 a.m.

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on a Sunday morning. The staff had gotten

him dressed and fed him breakfast

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at seven o'clock, just like usual.

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And at 7 30, shortly before I got there,

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he walked right out the front door.

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And then I got there at eight,

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and he was nowhere to be found.

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And for two hours, we couldn't find him

anywhere.

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Two hours. I cannot tell you what that

felt like.

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But here is the part that is so awful,

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it's almost funny. My father had

hitchhiked to church,

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as he told me.

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In actuality, he had caught a ride with an

elderly woman living in

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the same building who has dementia,

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badly as he does, maybe worse,

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who somehow still has a driver's license

and still out there driving.

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The two of them just drove off to church

together.

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He didn't even know what church they were

going to.

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That morning made a decision for me that I

had been dreading for a really long time.

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He wasn't safe. In regular assisted

living,

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they couldn't stop him from walking out

the door.

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So I didn't have a choice but to move him

to a locked memory care unit.

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And I gotta tell you.

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I live far away from my dad, and making

that call from a distance about your

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own father was one of the hardest things I

have ever had to do.

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And having good reasons to do it did not

make it hurt any less.

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But this is what I actually want to share

because it's actually the whole point

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of this episode. Yesterday was move day,

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and it could not have gone any better.

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He ended the day with a huge grin on his

face.

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And it worked because of the people that

made it happen and the plan.

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Ashley, a social worker I bring in from

time to time to help my dad,

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took him out for the whole morning to get

him a haircut and a shave

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at his favorite barber shop

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and enjoy the massage chairs at the mall

that he loves so much,

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Just so he would be happy and busy during

the initial chaos of the move.

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While he was gone,

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John from the facility where my dad lives,

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moved all of his furniture. Karen,

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my dad's brain therapist, packed up his

clothes and all of his personal things.

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And James, who I call my brother from

another mother,

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and who treats my father like his own dad,

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hung all the pictures, and he set up the

ring camera I place in his room,

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which gives me a window into his world and

keeps me close to my dad,

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even though we're states away.

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When Ashley had to leave at noon,

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James took over keeping my dad busy.

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And Karen took over the setup and

beautification of his room.

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They decorated his room in his favorite

Ole Miss colors - that was Karen's idea.

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They traded his little twin bed for a

king.

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And when my father finally walked into

what Karen had dubbed his "penthouse",

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he looked around and he said everything

was amazing and perfectly in its own

place.

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Later, when I called to check in,

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he told me he had moved into a penthouse

with a big security door to keep

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the bad guys out and to keep him safe.

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Because that is just what Karen and James

had told him.

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He was happy as a pig in mud,

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as they say in my home state of

Mississippi.

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And I watched the whole thing from far

away on my phone,

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thanks to the ring camera in his room.

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I couldn't be there in person,

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but I was participating all day from the

phone and on the ring camera.

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I could see it all happening. And I gotta

tell you,

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he felt loved all day long.

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None of that worked because of the new red

blanket or the Ole Miss pillows

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or the bigger bed.

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It worked because of a group of people

still saw my father as a whole human

being.

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And they made a plan that made him feel

loved and like he belonged.

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It was the people and the plan.

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And that's Jonathan's ingredient playing

out in my father's brand new apartment.

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Now, here's where this becomes about

making things and not just about

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caregiving.

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Because when I went back and really looked

at my conversation with Jonathan,

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I realized something. He does not just

believe in belonging as a way

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to care for people.

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He used belonging as the way he built his

entire film.

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Think about how most of us do it.

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We make the thing first, we finish the

film or the first episode or the product,

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and then we go out looking for an

audience,

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hat in hand.

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Jonathan did it the other way around.

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He built the belonging first. He built a

whole movement.

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And honestly, the film was almost the

smallest part of it.

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He put a real human being at the center of

it,

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a 21-year-old nurse, Teun Tobes.

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Then there were best-selling books out in

the world before there was even

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a single frame of the movie shot.

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He and Teun created a play and discussions

afterwards.

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So by the time the film actually came out,

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people already felt like they were part of

something.

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They already belonged to it.

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And listen to how he talks about the work

itself.

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[Jonathan de Jong]

My work is all about connecting people,

showing the beauty of humanity,

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[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

making people aware of the importance of

connecting,

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[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

of the power of social connection.

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He even said this to me and it made me

laugh.

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[Jonathan de Jong]

We made dementia sexy.

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He got young people to buy tickets and sit

in a theater for

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a documentary about dementia. Not by

tricking them into it.

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He did it by making them feel like they

belonged to something that actually

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mattered.

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That exact same ingredient that makes a

care room work is the one that built

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his audience. He did not go out and reach

people.

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He invited them to belong.

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There's an old idea that helps me

understand why any of this works.

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A philosopher named Martin Buber wrote a

little book back

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in 1923 called "I and Thou".

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And his whole idea is that there are two

ways to be with another person.

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You can treat someone as an "it" an "it"

is a thing you manage.

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A problem you handle, a body in a bed,

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a number on a list. Or you can treat

someone as a "Thou".

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And a "Thou" is a whole person,

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someone you actually meet eye to eye.

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Dementia care goes wrong the very moment a

person turns into an "it",

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a patient to be processed, instead of a

father to be known.

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Jonathan's word for the answer is

belonging.

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Buber's word is "Thou". but they are

pointing at the very same thing.

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See the person. And here is the part that

is for us,

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the ones who make things.

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Filmmaking goes wrong the exact same way.

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The moment your audience becomes an "It",

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a view count, a click, a number to

convert,

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you have stopped making something for

people and started aiming something at

them.

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And people can feel the difference.

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They can always feel it.

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We do it to people in our films too.

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We can point a camera at a person and

quietly turn them into a prop

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for our argument. Or we can meet them.

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We can treat them like a "Thou".

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Jonathan and Teun met them. That is why it

worked.

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So here is something to think about.

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It's simple, but I promise you,

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it is not easy. If you are trying to get

something you made in front of the world,

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stop thinking about your audience as an

audience.

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Build belonging before you build buzz.

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Invite people to feel like they are part

of what you are doing,

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long before you ever ask them to watch it

or buy it or share it.

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Treat the person in front of your camera

and the person on the other side

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of the screen like a "Thou", like a whole

human being,

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like someone who belongs. That is what

Jonathan did with a film about dementia.

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And in a much smaller way.

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And much more personal way. That is what a

room full of people did

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for my dad yesterday. It was the people

and the plan.

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So the question I want to leave you with

is this.

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And the thing you're making right now,

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who have you been treating as an it?

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And what would change for them and for

your work if you started treating them

like

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a "Thou?"

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If something in this helped you today,

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do one thing for me. Send it to just one

person.

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Maybe someone who is building something

and can't quite figure out

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why it isn't working.

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Or maybe someone who is caring for a

person they love and needs to hear that

they

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are doing it right. Just one person.

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And if you're new here, follow or

subscribe wherever you're listening or

watching.

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It costs you nothing and it means the

world to us.

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It would also be great if you would leave

us a review on Spotify or Apple.

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If you would like to support the show,

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the link to our Patreon is in the show

notes below.

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Belonging is the method. It is how you

care for a person.

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It is how you build an audience.

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And near as I could tell, it is how you

make anything that lasts.

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I'm Christian Taylor and you've been

listening to Documentary First,

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The Deep Dive. And I'll see you next time.

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Bye, everybody.