An earlier version of this film was submitted to the 2010 Portland, Oregon 48-Hour Film Festival competition and won the Best Editing award. Assigned genre was mockumentary; required prop was pistachio nuts (ubiquitously featured); required line of dialogue "I have a surprise for you" (which appeared twice); and required character "Pete or Pam Peterson," which Elkayam turned into one person for a "who's on first" style scene with the package delivery man.
The abortive viral videos that the lead character shoots were obviously inspired by, and parodies of, actual viral videos. For example, the 'Not Fat Kid' sequence plays off the 'Numa Numa Song' and the guy who appeared in the second-most-viewed video in the world, with more than 700 million hits on YouTube between 2004 and 2006.
For the 'Not Fat Kid' sequence, musicians Zimmerman, Nunley, Rypkema, and Allen composed and recorded a parody of 'Dragostea din tel,' the Romanian pop song by the Moldovan group O-Zone that was used in the viral video 'Numa Numa.' The parody in 'Hit Count' is in Bosnian, and goes:
Pijem gorskih rosi. Jaz sem osamljen fant, baby. Jaz sem mascobe otrok. Jaz sem osamljen fant, baby. United States! London! Amsterdam!
Pijem gorskih rosi, baby. Uh huh.
Which translates as:
(I drink Mountain Dew.) (I am lonely kid, baby.) (I am fat kid.) (I am lonely kid, baby.) (United States!) (London!) (Amsterdam!)
(I drink Mountain Dew, baby.) (Uh huh.)
Pijem gorskih rosi. Jaz sem osamljen fant, baby. Jaz sem mascobe otrok. Jaz sem osamljen fant, baby. United States! London! Amsterdam!
Pijem gorskih rosi, baby. Uh huh.
Which translates as:
(I drink Mountain Dew.) (I am lonely kid, baby.) (I am fat kid.) (I am lonely kid, baby.) (United States!) (London!) (Amsterdam!)
(I drink Mountain Dew, baby.) (Uh huh.)