At the Movies

Have you ever heard of hitRECord.org? That's "hit" as in press, and "record" as in to make a record of or set down in permanent form, NOT "record" as in sound recording consisting of a disc with continuous grooves.

In summary, it's an open collaborative production company. What the heck is that, you ask? It's where everything posted to the site becomes common property, for lack of a better term. I think the easiest way to describe it, is to give an example. Say Person 1 posts a photograph or stick-figure drawing, Person 2 would be inspired to animate it, Person 3 would loop the animation and maybe come up with some lyrics, Person 4 would remix the lyrics to make a song, Person 5 may feel inspired to loop in some more animation or add in some background musical instruments. Pretty soon there's an animated short film that a bunch of people --who, generally, have never met before-- collaborated to make. So, no matter your skill level (from drawing of stick figures to graphic animation and everything in between and above and beyond), there's a place for your creativity. Videos, writing, photography, music, anything -- and they're called RECords.

So, a few weeks ago, the creator of the site, RegularJOE, announced the event "hitRECord at the Movies." Having no idea what would happen at this event, I knew it'd be creative and awesome, so I snatched up a couple tickets (it sold out before I could blink, so I'm glad I was on top of things). I told my roommate, Katie, that I had a surprise for her (she has a crush on RegularJOE) and to clear her evening, but I never told her why. For weeks she kept guessing different activities that I could have signed up for; "are we riding giraffes," "are we starring in a musical, because girl you know I can't sing," etc. (Oddly, there was singing involved, but I didn't know that ahead of time.)

So, long story short, the event's schedule went something like this:

• Play 2 short collaborative animations.
• Play 1 pre-recorded reading of a Tiny Story (with collaborative animation).
• Select 1 person from the audience to perform a dramatic interpretation of a Tiny Story chosen by ReguarJOE.
• RegularJOE did something creative (like sing a song or play a video and do live narration).
• Audience participation (like sing a song, while RegularJOE recorded it for the site to maybe use in a collaborative project).
• Rinse & repeat for the duration of 2+ hours.

It was kind of amazing. Nay, a better word would be inspiring, and at times moving and sad. Both Katie and I, neither of which would call ourselves creative, walked out and we both wanted to buy video cameras and construction paper and take a class on stop motion. I can't think of a time in my life when I've been this inspired to be creative.

There are some people out there with hidden and unrealized talent.