The Future of Exhibition: Opening the Box Office - our panel at OVC

For those in New York on Friday, the second Open Video Conference kicks off with a packed schedule including academics, makers (from Sally Potter and the Yes Men to Autotune the News and OK Go), enablers (Mozilla, Miro, the Workbook Project, Kaltura, Popcorn.js, etc) and others like the editor of Guardian.co.uk. For those not able to make it, there will be the world's first WebM stream of the event which we'll link to here.

I feel very honoured to be in such company presenting a panel about the future of exhibition and cinema with Arin Crumley and Jon Reiss - both of whom have not only shot great independent features (Four Eyed Monsters and Bomb It, respectively) but self distributed them AND are each trying to help everyone else do the same through the recently open-sourced OpenIndie service and the Think Outside the Box Office book. I'm still hoping we will also be joined by one of the world's top rated VJs, but meantime here's the skinny:

The Future of Exhibition - Opening the Box Office

3-3.45pm - October 1st, New York, Seminar Room 2, Fashion Institute of Technology: 7th Ave at 27th St

If cinema going and exhibition is to filmmakers what gigs and concerts are to musicians - a live, unique experience that people are still happy to pay for - why is it a space so dominated by major media companies?

And given the rapid technological shifts in film and videomaking, why has the film-going experience barely changed in 60 years?

In this session we'll look at how people are taking exhibition into their own hands - from microcinemas and indie film clubs, to VJing and visual art, fan-driven screenings and audience interactivity, exploring how the future of exhibition goes way beyond the multiplex.

Presenters:
Arin Crumley, co-director of the breakout self-financed New York-set feature Four Eyed Monsters talks about how he created a groundbreaking release for his first film, and introduces his new platform, OpenIndie, funded by Kickstarter and offering a way for filmmakers to organise screenings outside of traditional cinemas.

Jon Reiss, director of the self-distributed and produced graffiti documentary, Bomb It, and author of Think Outside the Box Office, looks at how producers are bypassing traditional gatekeepers to reach out to their audience while exploring the tools that are shaping this process.

Nic Wistreich, co-author of the 11,000-copy selling self-distributed Film Finance Handbook, occasional VJ/filmmaker and co-founder of Netribution, will discus findings from the Living Cinema R&D project about exhibition and development, exploring what is happening to open the future of exhibition.