Prosumers: Key Factors for Successful Filmmaking Crowdfunding Projects

Abstract

During the current digital (r)evolution, consumer and producer roles have started to converge, with consumers becoming value creators and, to a certain extent, producers. This phenomenon is particularly enhanced on online platforms and social networks, especially in creative-cultural industries. The goal of this research is to discuss the role of the prosumer in the film industry in the context of crowdfunded projects, with a focus on the Romanian experience. Through an empirical analysis of successful filmmaking crowdfunding projects, the backers role in the film production process is investigated. The eight cases analysed within this research represent the quasi-totality of the successfully crowdfunded filmmaking projects via Romanian crowdfunding platforms. The research reveals that the active involvement of backers-consumers into the film production process represents one of the most valuable rewards offered in exchange for the highest financial contributions, with the majority of successful filmmaking projects including it in their reward strategy. According to the research findings, filmmakers understand that, on the one hand, fans can financially contribute more by being provided with such an opportunity, and that, on the other hand, prosumers can use their skills and expertise and translate them into creative input, execution, assessment, and testing of the project. The author posits that the opportunity to become producer in a film is an incentive to financially (and additionally non-financially) contribute to the project, thus increasing the odds of the project to be successful. Such conclusion can improve the reward scheme in crowdfunded filmmaking projects as well as their rate of success.