DVD Review “HitRECord Recollection Vol. 1”

Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Featuring: 471 Collaborators on HitRECord.org
Number of discs: 2
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Video Group
Run Time: 65 minutes

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

“Are you recording?” – This is not your typical DVD review. It isn’t even really just a DVD, it is a collection of art. On this release we get a DVD featuring 36 short films and videos, CD with 17 original songs and a book which includes 64 pages of drawing and writing. HitRECord.org was started by Joseph Gordon-Levitt…yes the same Joseph Gordon-Levitt from last year’s “Inception”. He started this website, which is now a production company, to develop art and media collectively over the internet. Users upload their work on the site and then remixed by its users adding in animation, sound, music, script and video effects. This is a really great idea and a great way to strum up original ideas.

So let’s get to the 36 short films and videos, some of amazing and some are good, nothing bad. The most unique are called tiny stories, which run only a few seconds and rarely longer than a minute. My favorite tiny story was easily “The Hummingbird” and it has me laughing out loud. My favorite short film is easily “Morgan & Destiny’s Eleventeeth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo”, it is so fun and creative. I also really enjoy “Optimistic”, it was very inspiring for young filmmakers. There are a few music videos remixed on the disc as well, “Everything Is On Fire All the Time” is the most notable. Also includes are clips from RegularJoe’s (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) tour through colleges, SSW and Sundance.

If you think all that is great…I still haven’t got to the book portion yet with 64 pages of art, lyrics, poems and animation. Then we didn’t even get to the 17 original songs. Since this whole “Recollection” is a remix collection of very fun and interesting songs. They range from all types of music and are definitely some great jams. I enjoyed the music from “Morgan M. Morchestra”. All and all if you are fan of independent and new ideas this set will definitely inspire you. This is an all around hit and I am very anxiously waiting for Volume 2 to be released and I will be visiting hitRECord.org more frequently as well.