The Open Video Conference looks like an interesting couple of days for anyone interested in online video and the future of open and participatory culture on the web. From their description:

Open Video is more than just open codecs. It’s the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and further decentralization in online video. These qualities provide more fertile ground for independent producers, bottom-up innovation, and greater protection for free speech online. The conference will showcase awesome cultural works, inspiring talks, and cool tech demos.

They have some great speakers like Clay Shirkey and Yochai Benkler and topics span a huge and fascinating spectrum: fair use, human rights and video, mobile journalism, art and technology and giving away films for free (Jamie King will be speaking about Steal This Film II, Brett Gaylor about Rip: A Remix Manifesto). I plan to be there and will report back. There will also be a live webcast.

Find out more about the Open Video Alliance and the ideas behind the Conference in the video below.

I have been spending the last few days catching up on presentations and panels from the Power to the Pixel conference that took place in London last month – they are now online and free to wach. There’s some great info and ideas here, from Christy Dena on cross-media production, to Arin Crumley on collaborative filmmaking to Jamie King on distribution. If you are feeling worried about how the credit crunch is going to affect independent filmmaking (and let’s face it, who of us isn’t!) then watch some of these videos and get inspired about all the possibilities out there (many of them low cost, using free tools that are already available).

Here’s Jamie King, creator of Steal This Film, which has been viewed millions of times after being given away for free via BitTorrent.

Scott Kirsner has a report in Variety about the Consumer Electronics Show happening at the moment in Las Vegas, focusing on how we may be entering a new age of open architecture.

If you wish you were at CES to gawk at all the new tech goodies you can watch some live footage on Mogulus and you can ask questions and comment via live chat.

The Producer’s Institute for New Media Technologies is 10-day residency run by BAVC in San Francisco that teaches documentary filmmakers how to adapt their socially relevant work for delivery across different digital platforms from web to video. The institute will take place from May 29th to June 8th 2008 and the application deadline is February 1st 2008 so check it out now as it sounds like a great way to learn more about harnessing emerging technologies to tell your stories and reach people in new ways.

There are some online resources from this year’s institute that you may find useful if you are developing your own website and want to learn more about design and authoring.