Open Cinema: Forms and Strategies of Production Based on Participation

Abstract

One of the main formulae of innovation in the production and sponsoring of cinematographic projects nowadays involves including notions such as participation or collaboration of users related in some way to them. In this article, I will attempt to propose some ideas on the diversity, complexity and contradictions in the use of participation in the audiovisual creation. For this purpose, I will draw upon the examination of different creative practices in cinematographic projects based upon participation, according to what I call the four basic dimensions of the opening of cultural production: opening of technology, opening of the use of the contents, opening of the creative processes and opening of the aesthetic experience. For this analysis I will make use of remarkable cinematographic initiatives that are so different among themselves such as Life in a Day, The Age of Stupid, Iron Sky, El Cosmonauta or Stray Cinema, as well as support platforms for production like Wreck a Movie, Cineama or crowdfunding websites.