While Kickstarter has gained much attention for its successful funding of consumer products like the Pebble Watch or the Ouya gaming system, much of its crowdfunding has gone into creation of the arts. “Kings Point,” “Buzkashi Boys” and “Inocente” have become the fourth, fifth and sixth Kickstarter-funded films to earn Academy Award nominations.

Kickstarter’s website notes that it has helped successfully launch more than 8,600 movie projects over the past three years and has helped secure $100 million in funding. Some of the films have received critical acclaim, as Kickstarter notes “19 KS-funded films — 10 percent of the slate — were official Sundance 2012 selections, with 4 award winners!”

Kickstarter CEO Perry Chen likes that Kickstarter has helped to shift some power away from major movie studios.

“We’re used to this industrial creative complex of movie studios, record labels and production houses. It wasn’t always that way,” he told GigaOM. “Any dent we can put into the machine we’re happy to do. I think we’re already seeing it. A lot of these things that are getting funded would not have been funded in any way. People are watching films that were made on Kickstarter and playing games that were made on Kickstarter.”

“I think the big media companies are going to continue to have things that they’re going to keep making for the mass audiences, but we hope we’re eating away at the bad stuff,” adds Chen.

“Kings Point” and “Inocente” were nominated in the Best Documentary Short Subject category, while “Buzkashi Boys” was nominated for Short Film (Live Action). Three other Kickstarter projects — “Incident in New Baghdad,” “Sun Come Up” and “The Barber of Birmingham” — were nominated in the past.

According to Kickstarter, more than 2.2 million people from 177 countries pledged a total of $319,786,629 in 2012 and successfully funded 18,109 projects. (For more interesting 2012 stats, check out the Kickstarter year-in-review slideshow.)