AN INTERVIEW WITH OPEN VIDEO CONFERENCE’S BEN MOSKOWITZ

By Scott Macaulay

Thanks to the Workbook Project for allowing us to cross-post this interview with Ben Moskowitz of the Open Video Conference. Filmmaker readers can receive a special discount to attend this year’s conference by clicking here and entering the discount code FILM20.

The Open Video Conference returns to NYC with a stop at FIT for two days of conference Oct 1st and 2nd and a special hack day on Oct 3rd. We caught up with Ben Moskowitz who’s pulling the event together to get a better sense of what to expect.

WorkBook Project: What is OVC and what’s new this year?

Ben Moskowitz: OVC is a two-day gathering for anyone who’s interested in the future of web video. The event draws a big and diverse crowd of businesspeople, technologists, lawyers, academics, artists and others. At one level it’s a showcase for creative and technical innovation in online video, especially some of the exciting things happening with HTML5 and open video. But we also grapple with some larger questions—with so much free content out there, how will artists get paid? Who decides what you watch? Who knows what you watch? We are very much about the top-level concerns of this emerging web video medium, the web, and the mass media system generally.

OVC is presented by the Open Video Alliance, which is a coalition of organizations and individuals building open tools, policies, and practices for web video. This is the second time we’ve produced OVC. This year’s event is bigger, featuring a small film festival and hack day. But on a deeper level, what’s new this year is that HTML5 video and open video generally are really picking up industry support, and lightbulbs are beginning to go off in people’s heads. So some of the really advanced stuff that we’ve been forecasting and building toward is becoming tangible. OVC is a great place to get a peek at some of that stuff.

WBP: What’s the most pressing issue facing Open Video and why?

Moskowitz: At OVC we’re interested in all facets of web video. To have an “open” video ecosystem, we’re … Read the rest

NEW BREED L.A. #6: “THE INTEGRITY OF STORY”

Here’s the latest of our videos by Sabi Pictures in collaboration with the Workbook Project on L.A. Film Festival filmmakers and their creative processes. This installment: “The Integrity of Story.” The final episode in this series will be up Monday, so if you haven’t caught up with the others yet, check out the links below.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 6 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.… Read the rest

NEW BREED L.A. #5: “MAKING PEOPLE NOTICE”

Here’s part five of the New Breed Los Angeles series looking at the creative filmmaking process through the eyes of several filmmakers attending this year’s Los Angeles Film Fest. Today’s episode focuses on the time-honored question of how to get people to notice your work. Speaking are Marwencol director Jeff Malmberg and The New Year director Brett Haley.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 5 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.… Read the rest

NEW BREED L.A. #2: “ENGINEERING SERENDIPITY”

Here’s the second of the New Breed videos on the creative process filmed this year by Sabi Pictures at the Los Angeles Film Festival and presented by Filmmaker and the Workbook Project. Appearing in this episode are filmmaker Julius Onah (one of our “25 New Faces”), filmmaker Jeff Malmberg, actress Trieste Kelly Dunn (another “25 New Face”), director Brett Haley and producer Ted Hope.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 2 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.… Read the rest