How can I hide data from populating Visuals until I filter it in?

I do the same thing when reporting survey data.  All visuals are blank until a user selects a question from a slicer.  To do this, I first created a measure using IF and HASONEFILTER to check whether one question is selected:

QuestionSelectCheck = IF(HASONEFILTER(SurveyQuestions[Question]),"1","2")

Then, for each visual, I drag that into the visual level filters box and set it to display if QuestionSelectCheck = 1.  

Note that this doesn't remove everything (headers and titles and what not are still there for each visual), but it does remove all the data from the visual.  

Depending on your specific needs, you may need HASONEVALUE, ISFILTERED, or even a COUNTA/DISTINCTCOUNT instead of or in addition to HASONEFILTER.  See http://www.powerpivotpro.com/2013/03/hasonevalue-vs-isfiltered-vs-hasonefilter/.