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En vogue at the moment is Kickstarter - beloved by artists, musicians, engineers and other dreamers. The site offers entrepreneurs a venue to pitch their grand idea, with the hope of raising donations to fulfil their stated financial goal. It’s like Dragon’s Den on a global scale.

The site has become a magnet for filmmakers in particular. Kickstarter allows them to circumvent the high costs and red tape involved in financing even a small film, by appealing directly to their eventual target audience. Most people might not be interested in a documentary about New York’s last arcade, or a horror film featuring a magical bat, but Kickstarter allows users to harness social media to promote these projects directly to the end user. The fans even get a few perks depending on the size of their donation.

The most high profile directors to approach Kickstarter recently have been Colin Hanks and Jennifer Fox. Colin Hanks is, of course, the son of Tom Hanks and star of Orange County and Roswell - he recently launched a bid for donations to finance a documentary on Tower Records, the now defunct record chain. It’s puzzling why Hanks, a millionaire, has to appeal for just $50,000 to produce the film, but it’s 80% on target already. Most documentarians would kill for $40,000 to make their next film.

Jennifer Fox is another director, and a veteran in her field, having a Sundance award and more than 30 years of experience in documentaries under her belt. When she was left with a hole in the budget of her new film, My Reincarnation, she faced bankruptcy if she couldn’t meet the cost. Appealing to Kickstarter to ease the burden, she was shocked to see the project reach a total of $150,000: 300% more than she needed. It’s the fourth highest earner on Kickstarter to date. Fox noted, “What Kickstarter showed me is that there were people all over hungry for this film that I didn’t even know about”.

The success of My Reincarnation and numerous other films appears to point the way to a new model of distribution, as well as a more efficient one. Why should financiers gamble on the success of a project, when sites like Kickstarter can provide solid proof of a film’s appeal? At this crucial stage in the birth of user-generated content, it’s a burning question.