Annelise Larson is an audience research and development specialist who helps screen storytellers, cultural organizations, funders, and institutions understand how audiences discover, connect with, and sustain media in a rapidly changing landscape.
She began her career as an independent filmmaker, with training at UBC Film, the Canadian Film Centre, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the National Screen Institute. Her early love of documentary research, storytelling, and audience connection eventually led her to digital marketing in 1995, where she became an early pioneer in search engine optimization and online audience strategy during Vancouver’s first internet boom. Her clients have included Whistler Blackcomb, Chapters Indigo, HSBC, and a wide range of cultural and media organizations.
Today, Annelise works primarily at the intersection of screen media, audience development, digital strategy, and cultural policy. Through veria.ca, she supports film, television, web series, video game, and digital-first storytelling projects with research, positioning, marketing strategy, and audience engagement planning. Her work bridges traditional screen systems and emerging creator-led models, with a focus on helping Canadian stories reach the people most likely to care about them.
Annelise speaks, teaches, and writes extensively about audience strategy, film distribution, digital discoverability, and the future of Canadian screen culture. Her research includes the Telefilm Canada-funded reports Thanks COVID! 15 Lessons in Film Distribution from the First Wave and Futureproofing Canadian Film: Working Towards a Sustainable Feature Film Ecosystem, as well as the Canadian Heritage-funded reports Navigating the Shifting Screen: Connecting Canadian Films to Audiences in 2025 and Beyond and Cultivating the Canadian Creator Economy.
She also created the on-demand course Digital Marketing for Media with the National Screen Institute and co-hosts the podcast STORY + AUDIENCE with screenwriter Jill Golick. Across all her work, Annelise remains committed to one core idea: audience is not an afterthought. Audience is the strategy.
