YouTube, LG, Tony and Ridley Scott of Scott Free Productions, Kevin MacDonald taking up directing responsibilities, and some 4500 submissions filtered down to just 90 minutes worth of footage. That's what Life in a Day is about, where anyone from around the world can submit a film shot on 24 July 2010 and be counted toward what would be this feature film that's just what its title says - Life in a Day - and the end result is something so simple in collaborative concept, but so packing such a powerful punch.
From time to time you'll wonder just about how many stories are out there at any given time, with millions of people each having something to say, and experience to share, that a snapshot at any time of everyone's collective existential moment will take us more than a lifetime to go through it, if we can capture it all in linear fashion and sieve through it like a video on fast forward. That's how Life in a Day felt, although we're spared a largely impossible task, having things whittled down to just one day, and submitted through technology to the producers of the film who will then have the task of distilling the aesthetically beautiful, meaningful shots into a coherent narrative.
Beginning from the wee hours of the morning and ending literally at 2359hrs, we see how people from around the world think up of similar ideas in their submissions, capturing moments which become timestamps of the day such as meals and routine rituals that find common ground wherever we are in the world. Landscapes also become very popular choices of capture, from dawns and dusks peeking through clouds, each different yet being the same the same source, to midnight electrical charges striking across the night time sky.
It's a mixed bag rolled up together from disparate sources put together in rhythmic, poetic terms, engaging and of course keeping your eye out for something that could have come from your own shores. It showcases diversity, yet have undertones of similarity in aspects of our lives, highlighting differences in geography yet sharing a constant range of emotions evoked and experienced. It's the human condition on display with all things almost beautiful, balanced with moments of poignancy and the mundane told through creative angles.
From the lot given you'll definitely have your favourite - mine involves one very early on in the film with a Japanese father and young son waking up in the day, shot through fish-eyed lens - or favourites, and I'm really curious if all 4500 shorts have been uploaded somewhere on the Youtube channel for everyone to freely access and take a look at the raw footage ourselves. Recommended!
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