John Fong’s blog on “Beyond Finishing the Game: A Look at Asian American Grassroots Outreach” briefly describes Asian American filmmakers’ usage of the grassroots outreach in order to increase the exposure of Asian American films to a wider audience. Because of the foreignness of Asian Americans, big companies refuse to invest in their films since they do not know much about Asian Americans, therefore leading filmmakers to look into the grassroots outreach.
The first successful film using the grassroots outreach method was the film The Debut. The Debut “[used] almost exclusively grassroots, self-distribution strategy [and] grossed over $1 million in the box office” (Fong, 5). With massive amount of emails sent all over Daly City and meet-and-greets with the stars, many people became interested and helped advertise the film, leading to it’s success. After the success of the film The Debut, another film, Better Luck Tomorrow, used a similar strategy and grossed over $3.5 million and “[created] an awareness among more Asian Americans of community and the importance of voting…to support Asian American cinema” (Fong, 7). Not only did filmmakers advertise their film, but they also campaigned the desire of young Asian Americans of belonging and defining their identity. Because of this campaign, it created more success and awareness in the Asian American community.
This blog focuses on the grassroots outreach which is using the community for marketing and outreach. This type of outreach refers to targeting small groups and hoping the group will send the message to a larger audience. In order to expose their films to a wider audience, Asian American filmmakers rely on the community as a marketing approach. This process begins with massive emails and connections to teenagers and young adults to advertise their film. These advertising methods encourage audiences to watch during the first week of the release of the film which will generate enough box office numbers for the following weeks. This domino effect will ensure the success of the film.
As referenced in the blog, grassroots outreach was first utilized by African Americans and through their success, Asian Americans applied this method in their films. Grassroots outreach was not only used by African Americans but by many neglected groups. These movements have impacted our civil rights, women’s advances, and rights of gender-based categories (Van Til). The method of using grassroots outreach have united many groups together in order to reach a common goal and this method has been used throughout history for many minorities.
References:
John Fong. “Beyond Finishing The Game: A Look at Asian American Grassroots Outreach.” 31 October 2007. Center for Asian American Media, http://caamedia.org/blog/2007/10/31/beyond-finishing-the-game/.
Van Til J., Hegyesi G., Eschweiler J. (2008) Grassroots Social Movements and the Shaping of History. In: Cnaan R.A., Milofsky C. (eds) Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Boston, MA