Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perhaps best known for his acting across films like “10 Things I Hate About You,” “500 Days of Summer” and “Snowden.” But times weren’t always peachy for Gordon-Levitt as a creative. After leaving the movie business to go to college, he realized the limits of the industry on his potential as a creative. He decided he wanted to take his creativity into his own hands and launched a message board where he’d post films, songs, etc.
But what started as a side hobby has turned into a production company in its own right, using technology to allow dozens of people to collaborate on a creative project. And, more importantly, it gives each contributor fair credit for their work, paying out individual creatives based on how much of their work was featured in the final product.
Obviously, it goes without saying that we’re thrilled to have Joseph Gordon-Levitt join us at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in October.
Far too rarely do we see creatives supported by the platforms where they post their work. With the current media landscape, and the ever-growing dominance of social media, the relationship between platform and creative is strained at best. And more importantly, it incentivizes all the wrong things.
From an interview in VentureBeat:
If what you’re going for is posting on YouTube, or Instagram, or platforms that monetize through the ad model, where they’re really just going for sheer volume and have the ability to manipulate people through ads, virality is the measure of success. And I think this is exactly at the heart of what’s interesting to me about doing [HitRecord]. I think if that is your measure of success, you’re going to undermine a lot of what’s actually meaningful and joyful about creativity. And I’m actually concerned for the human race’s creative spirit, because so much of our collective creativity is now destined for these platforms that are monetized by this sort of attention economy model. And it twists one’s understanding of one’s own creativity, and what the value of being creative is.
At Disrupt SF, we’ll discuss the growth of the HitRecord platform, plans for that fresh $6.4 million in Series A funding and how founders can seize this moment to provide collaborative tools that align creatives with the platforms they’re using.
Disrupt SF runs October 2 to October 4 at the Moscone Center in the heart of San Francisco. Tickets are available here.
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