You may recognise actor, producer and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt from blockbusters including The Dark Knight Rises, 500 Days of Summer and Inception. On top of an acting career that spans 30 years, Joseph is also the founder of collaborative production company HitRecord. Out to disrupt the conventional Hollywood model, HitRecord encourages artists on its platform to work collaboratively on productions, with the freedom to remix each other’s work and success distributed collectively.
“Rather than just exhibiting and admiring each others work as isolated individuals, we gather here to work on projects together,” as Joseph describes it. The company – founded in 2005, originally as a place for Joseph to get feedback on the projects he started between acting gigs – has enjoyed several successes, including winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media for the series ‘HitRecord on TV’, produced via the platform, in 2014.
Speaking to Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal, Joseph discusses the origins of HitRecord and how the company is disrupting Hollywood by pioneering a “collaborative, creative process, driven by people having fun”. He also details his early acting career and passion for editing and production – including dropping out of Columbia after discovering and falling in love with Final Cut Pro.
Joseph describes working with Christopher Nolan as a highlight, “He doesn’t think about what anyone else wants to see, he just makes a movie he wants to see”, explains why enduring years of interviews “effectively amounting to a salesman” has made him a better entrepreneur, the future of learning and technology and, crucially, what the Batcave is like in person!
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