Joseph Gordon-Levitt blows away Mizzou students with presentation at Jesse
by Paige Childs, posted Nov. 17, 2011
On Oct. 26, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 30-year old actor and producer, came to Jesse Hall at Mizzou to promote his open-collaboration production company called Hit RECord.
Hit RECord was created by Gordon-Levitt at the beginning of 2004 and revolves around layering many videos, audios, pictures and more into one video. He travels all over to put on shows just like this. Last year the company grossed close to $50,000 from their productions. MSA/GPC Department of Student Activities hosted the event, selling tickets to Mizzou students for $8.
According to his Wikipedia page, Gordon-Levitt was born on Feb. 17, 1981. Levitt began acting at a young age, earning the Young Artist Award, "Best actor under 10" in 1992. He acted in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun, and numerous movies including Angels in the Outfield and 10 Things I Hate about You.
He attended New York City's Columbia University, majoring in French and film studies. Levitt also made an appearance on Broadway in Austin Pedlkin's Uncle Bob.
Recently, he has acted in 500 Days of Summer, Inception and 50/50.
During the show at MU, Gordon-Levitt both entertained and created his own show at the same time. While he was interacting with the crowd, a camera crew was recording the entire thing to make yet another collaboration.
One activity he asked the audience do involved Twitter. Audience members tweeted in whatever they wanted and hash-tagged Hit RECord, then Levitt read the tweets. If he thought one was funny, he read it out loud and had the sender come up on stage. One sender shared a story about his friend at the movies and an "accident" she had.
"I was dying laughing," said Allison Pudlik, Mizzou freshman. "He's very creative."
In another activity, Gordon-Levitt told the audience to bring items from their pockets up to the stage. He didn't want phones; he wanted truly random items. One young woman brought up a picture of her brother who is in the army, while another brought up a condom.
She explained, "I have a condom because I pass them out on campus." She turned out to be a volunteer for SHAPE (Sexual Health Advocate Peer Education) at Mizzou.
In addition, Gordon-Levitt surprised the crowd with a few songs.
"I didn't know he could sing," said Maria Harper, student at Mizzou. "He completely blew my mind with the show, I wish I could see it again."
The entire purpose of Levitt's show was to open people's minds to all the different ways you can create unique movies, all by working off of someone else's clips or starting your own clip so others can add to it.
Gordon-Levitt's production company's website is at www.hitrecord.org.
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