I must admit that the first time I have seen Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the actor you might know from ‘A River Runs Through It’ or ‘500 Days of Summer’) introduce HitREC●rd I was very enthusiastic but could not imagine how an open collaborative production company could deliver what takes traditional production companies a great amount of funding, creativity and coordination.   

HitREC●rd is a global platform that connects artists and like-minded people with a passion for art, music and writing to collaboratively co-create unique content. Users co-create music, short films, drawings and writings in a process where every unique content can be edited or mixed by other community members. If the compiled content is produced the production company publishes books, vinyls, short films and DVDs.

Its seems quite complex as the HitREC●rd team has to choose from thousands of uploaded contributions and track the contributing artists. This is a logistical challenge which has been addressed by implementing a review and recommendation system to leverage on the community. A next step could be not only crowdsourcing productions but also to let the platform community vote on what should be produced next. At this stage, Joseph Gordon-Levitt serves as production direction and is in charge of choosing the next production. To foster and direct collaboration the HitREC●rd team and individuals can issue unique challenges to the community such as write a scary story about Captain Kidd & the Statue of Liberty.    

HitREC●rd creates a unique opportunity by serving the demand for transparency in the entertainment industry. The collaborative platform pays the contributing artists this is very different from the co-creation dilemma of double exploitation where consumers are not paid for their value creation and are then asked to pay a premium for the newly created product. Essentially HitREC●rd is a for-profit company which shares the profits 50:50 between itself to finance the platform and the contributing artists pool. This transparency in its business model is truely unique, especially when the HitREC●rd publishes a profit statement on the platform with preliminary allocation per artist to let the community of contributing artists give feedback on allocation. This example is the essence of a business model that involves consumer value creation and even more provides a peer-review system to allocate profits. HitREC●rd – the unique approach in the entertainment industry has paid its collaborating artists 1.9 million dollars since 2012.  

The next step was HitREC●rd on TV which essentially is crowd-sourced television based on a certain episode topic. In comparison to previous productions, this show combined live and pre-mixed online contributions on the cable channel Pivot. This Emmy award winning show has a unique production methodology which is very different from anything we have seen before on TV including closing credits with 426 artists.

If you would like to see some published productions from Sundance Film Festival or even contribute to the platform continue here: https://www.hitrecord.org/

 

References:

Jurgensen. (2014). Joseph Gordon-Levitt Ushers In Crowd-Sourced TV. Retrieved February 25, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303393804579308783293982964

Sheric. (2014). Independent Film Marketing And Publicity | Sheri Candler Marketing And PublicitySheri Candler Marketing & Publicity. Retrieved February 25, 2016, from http://www.shericandler.com/tag/business-models/

Zax. (2015). How Joseph Gordon-Levitt And His Creative Army Of Artists Are Changing TV. Retrieved February 25, 2016, from http://www.fastcompany.com/3047803/my-creative-life/how-joseph-gordon-levitt-and-his-creative-army-of-artists-are-changing-tv