Hit record button, then play, play, play
Joseph Gordon-levitt is a driving force behind hitrecord, an effort to get people to collaboratively create artistic content
Joseph Gordon-Levitt likes when buttons are being pushed.
The actor — decked out in a black suit and tie, with a petite red circle pin on his lapel — had taken the stage at the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles last summer as part of his latest title hyphenate. Greeting him was a glowing sea of phone screens and cameras affixed to raised arms, fulfilling the unusual pre-show request: “We’d like to remind you at this time to please turn on all recording devices.
“Are we recording?” he shouted to the 2,000 attendees, gripping a camera on a monopod that he used on himself (in true “selfie” form) and the audience during the night.
Just as the actor’s already prolific film career underwent a significant growth spurt last year — he wrote, directed and starred in the critically lauded “Don Jon” and secured a deal to produce the big screen adaptation of comic book series “The Sandman” — the 32-year-old auteur also found time to moonlight as an avant-garde show runner.
“HitRecord on TV” is the result. At a time when television is redefining its identity and people are creating content with the help of digital tools, “HitRecord on TV,” which premiered over the weekend, aspires to be an agent of change in the digital world. The half-hour show for Pivot, the recently launched cable network from Participant Media targeting millennials, is a medley of videos, shorts, songs and other creative vignettes harvested from GordonLevitt’s open-collaborative production community, HitRecord.
It’s a digital soup that Gordon-Levitt, who serves as host and who executive produces alongside Jared Geller and Brian Graden, likens to a modern-day version of “The Muppet Show” or “Sesame Street” for adults. Others have not been as f lattering. The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica described the show as a “vanity project masking as generosity.”
The hitRECord website has been