Recently, I sat down with Alex Hunter, a 25-year-old Filmmaker from Pittsburgh who created the YouTube Channel HiTop Films when he was 18. Mixing his personal experiences, filmmaking training, and passionate love of superheroes and storytelling, Alex has garnered over 400,000 subscribers and 50 million views.
Now, with his first feature film, “Jason,” he hopes to change the idea of what a “fan film” can be. It showcases an often overlooked and stereotypical side character and brings his tragedy to life with a gritty, down-to-earth, and raw filmmaking style.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Hunter (virtually) to discuss the timeline of the highly anticipated fan film while reflecting on what drew him to bring this project to reality. We also discussed how the variety of cape-related media and DC Comics’ conduit more than ever resemble a world like ours while sharing similar values to our favorite heroes’ status and potential future.
Brendan (DP): Alright, guys. My name is Bren versus Reviews, Brendan Rooney. I’m here today on behalf of dailyplanetdc.com, and I’m talking with Hightop Films, the one and only Alex Hunter. How are you doing today, Alex?
HiTop Films: I like that intro. I’m blushing. No, I’m good, man. I’m good. I’m doing alright today. I am just working on the movie as usual. How are you, man?
DP: I’m really good, man. I’m really good. One thing I want to say is, ladies and gentlemen, we’re here to talk about Jason Todd and his fan film, Jason, which I saw as a rough cut. It’s coming out really good, by the way. Also, I want to say I owe my career to you as a writer because I found your videos in college, and you kind of gave me a voice where I feel I have the platform I have now.
HiTop: Way too kind. Seriously, it’s way too kind. I’m so bad at taking compliments. I get so like, you know, oh, but no, no, I appreciate that. And dude, same. It goes both ways. I always say this and I do mean it. But like any that love you just shared in that personal experience, if my dumb ass can inspire anything and anyone, it’s the only reason I keep doing this. So that means a lot. Thank you.
DP: So, what have you been up to lately?
HiTop Films: I’m literally just nonstop editing and doing production. I don’t even know, but I’m producing work as well, finding the post-production team that we need to give it that extra polish and working with the different people all over. You know, a lot of them aren’t in Pittsburgh. We have a core team of six people locally who are still working on the movie. And that’s mostly just like Francesco, who plays Jason, and Johnny, who was the A.D. and very instrumental in the story. And just these guys I’ve always made movies with. And then we have the brilliant George Ignatius. George, if I said your name wrong, I’m so sorry. Then we have Matt Noble doing the score and the sound mix, respectively, and they’re cooking up magic. And, you know, we’re working with various VFX people to give it the final polish. So yeah, a lot of texting, a lot of how’s this going, a lot of find this person. I’m also just honing in on the cut. I think the good thing about I know people are waiting for the movie, and it’s been a long time and we promised it a year ago. But I think the good thing about the fact that it is a fan film and so independent with no one breathing down her neck is that I get to edit it a thousand times and make sure at every stage that it’s something that I’m proud of and is authentic to not only me but to the character of Jason. So yeah, basically, there is a lot of Jason stuff.
DP: So my next question is, what kind of forced your hand to make this? But it feels like Jason, especially in your videos; you always talk about that loner character, but you also talk about the introvert in a way.
HiTop: I think everyone agrees with you. I feel that most people, even I think the most extroverted people, like if I’m at a bar, at a party, I’m douche baggish extroverted. But I think that’s to cover up the introverted self, you know? And so I do kind of agree with that sentiment that most people have that introverted side to them. And forcing my hand was kind of the idea. I’ve always wanted to make this movie. Since I was 17 years old and graduating high school, we went away long ago. We did a short Robin fan film where Jason was Robin, still played by Francesco, before we knew anything about anything. It’s not on the internet. You can find it somewhere, but it’s not public anymore. But that was just because we were always drawn to that character for a plethora of reasons. I think I’ve talked about this in the past, but having grown up in a household with addicts parents who were addicted to substances and that high and low of that kind of relationship with them and having to grow up quickly and seeing your parents as people early is the Jason Todd story in so many ways. And also just growing up without a lot of money, which most people do, I feel like, you know what I mean, is something that you don’t really see that often. You see Peter Parker as always, you know, as this staple of the working class superhero. But there’s such an interesting idea of you take this poor kid from the worst part of hell, Gotham, Jason, you take him and you throw him together with this billionaire who has always been rich.
DP: And I feel like Jason is kind of an introvert. And I feel like that kind of speaks to writers in a way, too. Could you elaborate on that?
HiTop: In my opinion, Jason should be the best Robin. But yet people just conceptually think it’s the most interesting idea because you have this billionaire who still really can’t grow up with this super traumatized kid who used to be a criminal, basically. And you pair them together, and that’s just fun as hell storytelling, but b it just allows for all these discussions about the idea of superheroes and the idea of Batman as this guy, you know, the go-to always complain that Batman’s just a guy who beats on poor people.
And it’s like you have this character in Jason Todd that literally can address that and answer that and showcase what the poor person looks like in Gotham. And so we’ve always wanted to make this movie since we were 17 years old. And after we made a few more shorts like Plummer Scarecrow, all that stuff, we just had fun trying to hone in our voices. We made the very stupid decision to be ready to make a feature film. And for our first feature film, we’re going to shoot a $1 million script essentially for $30,000, which is fan-financed.
DP: Do you feel this project was crafted for you or the fans?
HiTop: I always thank the fans because we literally made movies for seven bucks before this, you know what I mean? But yeah, it was just a matter of wanting to do it while I was young. And that’s the thing, like we started actually working on it hardcore.
I think I was probably 20, and now I’m 25. We started to really just hone in on the script and do all that stuff. And it was like, OK, we’re making shorts, we’re doing that. And then I was like, but there’s something about doing this right now at this point in time was right after I think COVID started to settle down a bit when we decided we’re going to shoot this movie, we’re going to finance it, we’re going to do it. And it was because we’re all in the same city where young Pittsburgh just so happens to look a lot like Gotham, which is great.
DP: You seem to have gotten lucky with Pittsburgh looking like Gotham because you can shoot on location. Can you touch upon the freedom and creativity of that ability?
HiTop: Thanks, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That’s why I have to give credit to Pittsburgh architecture. It’s just perfect. There’s literally a Gothic church on every other block in the city, which is awesome. But yeah, no. So what drew me to it was the last five-minute ramble I went on. But it’s just the fact that I wanted to tell this story while I was young and angry and tell it from the perspective of a young, hungry, and longing young man. And I feel like if I had waited and if I was like, oh, I’ll sell this script or I’ll this is my dream project, I’ll make an original independent, all that stuff. I think that I’d lose the very kind of rub, can’t speak, the brotherly connection I have with Jason as a fictional character. I wanted to be in touch with him as an 18 or 19-year-old as he is in this film for most of it. I wanted to be in touch with him in a way that I think I need to do now. And it’s also I feel like I couldn’t make it. I was losing sleep over not making it, which I feel is the best way to know you should make something.
DP: The film thrives when you connect and zone in towards the aspect of Jason as an unreliable narrator, leaving the audience wondering about the point of view of the narrative. Is he Red Hood? Is he dead? Is he talking as Robin? Is that something you hope the audience recognizes?
HiTop Films: Thanks, man. I can say this because this isn’t a spoiler; it’s the first in the trailer, and it’s the first minute of the movie. But a lot of what you just said is spot on. And when Jason says the bird, the bullet holes in my life, they feel like a blur. To me, that was a way of dismantling all the things that people on the surface know Jason Todd for, which is that he was Robin. He knew Batman. He died. That’s the bullet points, you know, the bullet holes. He goes on about how it’s not really about any of that, that that’s not what he considers to be like his soul and his character. And that was kind of the starting point for the whole thing. Because, of course, especially when we started, you want to do the Robin stuff, you want to make that Batman and Robin thing. But halfway, I think through writing like the first draft of the script when I was 18 or 17. I realized, Oh, no, the really interesting story is about him and his father before he meets Batman and him and Willis and him and Sheila and the absence of his mother and how that affects him as a person. Because I feel like, honestly, I feel like so many people know Jason Todd and the media perpetuates this like his adaptations that he’s just this angry-edged Lord, the black sheep, the badass Robin.
And I feel like that’s unfair to anybody who’s a little bit unsettled and unhinged because of their upbringing. And so for me, it was very much like, Okay, well, let’s the comic books have done a great job of painting these broad strokes for the character. And I felt like the fan fiction element of it, like where I came in in our adaptation, was trying to add fine lines from my own life and from people I know’s lives and adding that into this character to make what I believe is very much the guy from just another kid in crime alley, the Max Allen Collins. I can’t remember the writers. I’m so sorry. But that original Batman, like 428, like the first post-crisis thing where he’s stealing the tires off the Batmobile. I felt like that was the gold blueprint. And so many people only want to do after death; they want to do their death in the family or under the Red Hood or one is Red Hood. But I feel like there’s such an interesting story to be told before any of that. And that was the jumping-off point. I don’t even know how I got to that. Got to that. I just started rambling. No, hey, sometimes rambles are the best kind of conduit, to be honest, expressing what’s going on up here. So thanks.
DP: This brings me to my next question: The symbolism of Jason realizing that this is my environment. I can get out of it, but something’s telling me I want to stay here, leading to the eventual confrontation where he will eventually find himself with Batman.
HiTop Films: Beautiful way to put it. I mean, you just summed it up as if you just sold the movie. So now my job’s done. No, but yeah, man, I mean, so as far as I know, I want to touch on a lot of what you just said because I love what you just said. As far as like production design of the cigarette butts in the hole is like, that was constantly the thing everything needed to be dirty or trashier, more covered in dirt and decay and filth. Every single frame needed to have that or it needed to have that dream like this is a dream or a memory quality, and combining the two was like the weird tone we tried to achieve. But I’m glad that was tangible and noticeable because we spent a lot of time dirtying up everything. Every outfit has about 42 burns in it like every character’s thing is like their fits are covered in dirt and rust and all that stuff. But yeah, I think that from the opening scene, I always love the idea that the opening scene kind of summarizes your whole film in a sense and what it’s going to be about. And at the end of the day, the image that’s always been in my head is the child Jason, kid Jason looking out the window while his mom’s begging him to look at her so that she can theoretically say goodbye or say I love you. But he can’t; instead, he’s looking towards Batman. With this false idea of a savior, he can’t face what’s really just right behind him because no kid should have to face that right like every kid escapes into Batman.
That’s a meta kind of thing. Plenty of times when I was reading a comic book, my parents were getting into it when I was a kid, and that felt like that shot. I’m sure a lot of people will be able to relate to that feeling. But like you said, you have these. The important thing to me was not to make it so universally bleak in the sense that I can’t have everyone be as shitty as Willis is in that opening scene. And Willis, even himself, I think, has these moments of kindness, even if they’re selfish kindness, he’s not completely just an archetypical like F you dad, you know like he’s very he’s lived this life. I always like to say that Willis is Jason in 25 years. If Jason didn’t have his mom, even for that 11 years before she left or eight years before she left Willis, in my head, this is never explored.
If you didn't watch live, here are the updates.
— HiTop Alex (@HiTopFilms) December 1, 2024
Jason is almost done, the final (really close to picture lock) cut is 1 hour and 37 minutes.
We are hoping it's a February release, but we need time to market and finish the sound mix and VFX.
It was made by a core team of 6… pic.twitter.com/wMOFYPNTFY
They’re just doing it to survive. But also, and by that accord, you couldn’t even have you need some characters who aren’t that morally gray, like Angie, old John, who I love old John so much, Rob, see who just are different parts of Jason. But they’re also. I wanted every character to feel like they’re living their own movie. They have stuff going on. So if you notice in the movie, every character that Jason bumps into is in the middle of their own story, the middle of life. Oh, yeah. Oh, And it’s not like they’re waiting for Jason to show up so they can drop a line.
You know what I mean? I think Jason’s the most stagnant character. He’s the most still character. He’s waiting for people to tell him what to do and how to feel. Because, like you said, and I love that you said this, he is a shell in a lot of ways. You see that anger that you know, and you see the wise-ass mouth, especially with Willis, that you know from the way he’s written. But he’s also, at this point, just filled with sadness. We always talked about how, as you mentioned, his mom leaves on Christmas.
And I think that it’s never it was very important to us that it was never said verbally that, oh, it’s been X amount of time since she left. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. You feel it almost like it’s it’s this anniversary thing. And you hear early in the movie. I can say this: I don’t mind. You don’t have to cut this spoiler. But you hear early in the movie, early early in the movie, you hear that the Waynes also died on Christmas. So there’s this already just this parallel being set up by this man’s amount of trauma. But polar opposites, the rich family gets gunned down in Park Row on Christmas X amount of time ago.
Jason’s mother left him on Christmas an X amount of time ago. These two are very different, but souls are connected before they even meet each other. And that was very important to me not to avoid Batman but to put Batman in as almost a religious figure, a savior to a child. And then when you’re when he’s older, I think it’s more of a it’s not necessarily a fear. I don’t think he necessarily thinks Batman is going to come stop him from stealing a car. But it’s more disillusionment. Like, I don’t believe I don’t have faith in any kind of savior anymore. Like, fuck that signal. You can bleep me if you want. But you know what I mean?
DP: I really think that speaks to how we perceive superheroes as kids and when the mirage peels away as adults.
HiTop: Essentially, we don’t know how to configure them to fit the puzzle we’re trying to make or explain. And I feel having Jason be the audience conduit as the bat symbol being valued as hope and justice as a child dismantled into a lie, akin to more of a disillusionment, is a strong allegory of what the characters of Jason Todd and Bruce embrace.
DP: Could you disclose your thoughts on that?
Hitop Films: Yeah, I definitely think so. And so much of it, I think we, having anyone with a kind of troubled childhood or any kind of tumultuous trauma in their youth, can relate to the idea of expecting that Batman will save you even because even if you’re old enough to know that it’s fictional, right? Like even when you reach like, I don’t know, eight, nine, 10, and you know that like that stuff isn’t real, you still have that hope like deep into like your preteen years that like, you know, things will work out, good will triumph over evil. And so I think one cool way to connect the audience when making the movie to Jason was to tell a story about someone who believed fully that they deserved to be saved but now believes there is no saving. And that’s such a deeply sad sentiment that I don’t fully agree with it, but I don’t want to spoil the movie. you’ll see what happens in the movie and what happens and what that is. And sometimes, even when you are saved, it’s not what you wanted. And maybe the only person who can save you is yourself and your growth and healing what’s in there.
I think Jason’s the best version of himself when he’s Robin. Toward the end of Robin, he’s disillusioned a little bit with the way Bruce does things. And right when he’s about to maybe be OK with things, you know, I think that’s when obviously death in the family happens. And that’s the ultimate tragedy. And the story itself is a tragedy. And that’s what’s been heartbreaking to make but also very therapeutic.
DP: I think there’s a perfect sense of a beautiful dichotomy, how Batman prays and uses fear as a sense of trying to cope with his parents’ loss, realizing the vow that he took at eight years old. Then Jason tries to escape by using conflict as his serotonin, his dopamine to get through the struggles and the moral disconnect that he incurs and that he faces on a daily basis. Do you agree?
Hitop Films: No, 100 percent. I think that I don’t know. I guess the audience will have to tell me, and you can tell me how you felt about it. But to me, there’s always the thing of, like, especially when you get into the, I guess, the winnick in the Earl scenes. There’s this thing of, like, is Jason enjoying this hustle with his dad? And is he enjoying it because, like you said, it’s some kind of conflict, action, dopamine? Or is it also because it’s the only time he gets to spend with his dad, and it’s Christmas? And that’s his idea of spending time with his family. And so we always wanted the audience to question how much of Jason is just being dragged along and what amount of him enjoys doing this stuff. Does he enjoy stealing from presumably the rich, expensive cars and taking the money for himself and his dad? Does he does he believe that’s justice? And that’s the whole thing. I think that we didn’t want to put a bow on an answer but rather allude towards and allow the audience to project their own sense of moral justice onto Jason. So yeah, 100%.
DP: At the end of it all, what is the main takeaway you want “Jason” to illicit?
Hitop Films: Yeah, I think I just want to encourage anyone who’s reading this to create and translate all the shitty stuff that’s ever happened in your life. translate that, adapt it, and, you know, communicate and share. I think even if, as you said earlier, beautifully, so many people are introverted, it’s hard to express their feelings, and it’s hard to find a voice. But I just want to assure anyone reading who’s thinking about making their movie, thinking about making their fan film, writing their fan fiction, writing their own individual original thing. And you’re scared to do it, just do it, just do it. Because even if one person reads it, you have the potential to change that person’s life, and you have the potential to connect. Because I think storytelling is about empathy and it is connection. And that’s my rant and speech. Also, watch Jason when it comes out. Otherwise, I’m retiring.
DP: Well, Alex, thank you so much for your time. I truly appreciate it.
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[…] Brendan Rooney sat down with Alex Hunter, a 25-year-old Filmmaker from Pittsburgh who created the YouTube Channel HiTop Films when he was […]