Pivot is a new network launched by Participant Media and described by the company’s president Evan Shapiro as a network targeting the new generation: Millennials. “Where other people may see navel-gazing, entitled narcissists, we have a hero generation ready to take on the challenges that are present in the world, challenges they didn’t create,” explained Shapiro during the network’s panel at the 2013 summer Television Critics Association event. “We have an innate respect for the optimism and the intelligence of our audience in this generation – I know, a change – and that, in turn, informs every moment of our programming.”
Among the network’s line-up of programs targeting that key demographic is HitRECord on TV! created by actor/filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Gordon-Levitt also directs and hosts the variety show whose title refers to a ‘record’ button, not a record containing music tracks and which will feature a little bit of everything.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt HitRECord on TV! Interview
How do you think people your age want to watch television and how will they watch it in the upcoming years?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “Well, you know, the 20th-century media was very much a monologue and there was a small clique of an industry that would broadcast what it made and everyone else just had to sit and listen, and that’s not what’s happening anymore. I think that’s really exciting from my point of view just as an artist, someone making movies and things like that.
Taking that progress in technology and applying it to the creative process creates a whole different playground of what you can do with various artistic forms. And so that’s what we’re playing with on HitRECord on TV!. And, certainly, I think Pivot is, probably more than any other TV network I’m aware of, also tapping into the changes that are happening. The media is a completely different thing than it used to be.”
How does this show and your movie Don Jon relate to each other, and where do you want to go with your career?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “HitRECord is something I’ve been doing for many years in one way or another. I always sort of dreamed that my traditional career in show business would one day meet up and intersect with what I was doing on HitRECord. And right now is the very, very beginning of that intersection really happening, and it’s literally fantastic. It’s like a fantasy for me that this is now happening that we’re getting to do what we’ve been doing for years on HitRECord on such a grand stage and in mainstream media. Just the fact that I’m here talking to all you guys about HitRECord, I’m having a crazy head trip right now just doing it.
As far as Don Jon, I don’t think I would be able to be doing this TV show right now if I hadn’t have had that experience. You know, I grew up on movie sets. But getting to go through the traditional directing process and taking it from beginning to end has been enormously informative for all the challenges that have come forward doing the show.”
Why team up with Pivot?
“It’s just allowing us to do what we’ve always done, and I really take my hat off to Pivot, who’s giving us the creative freedom to do what we’ve always done over the last several years, but do it on a really grand scale.”
Did you have talks with the other networks, and did anyone else make an offer?
“Yes, we had offers from a number of networks, and we decided to go with Pivot because I felt that this was the only place where we would be able to do exactly what I wanted to do and not make any creative compromises. The fact that they’re a new network, I think, is hugely beneficial for us because they are willing to sort of open their mind to doing things different ways. This show from a legal standpoint and from an insurance standpoint and from an intellectual property law standpoint is a nightmare. It’s made collaboratively by artists – thousands and thousands and thousands of artists from all over the world. You say that to a lawyer or to an entertainment insurance person and they start tearing their hair out. If we didn’t have a network that would bat for us and support us in that, we would have had to have made huge creative compromises that I did not want to make.”
It’s described as a variety show. What does that actually mean?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “It means we’ll have short films and music and live performances and comedy and cartoons and mini-documentaries – a wide variety of things. Each episode evolves around a different theme and I host it so there will be that continuity taking you through.”
What’s something people might learn about you from watching this show that they might not have known before?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “This is definitely the most personal project I’ve ever done by a lot. I mean, when I’m in movies I’m playing characters. In Don Jon I play this guy Jon who is very different from me. In Looper I play this other guy, and in Dark Knight Rises I play another guy. They are all different people. HitRECord, I’m hosting it as regular Joe – that’s me. So it’s really kind of the first time I’ve ever done a project where I’m myself.”
