Life in a Day

On the 24^th of July, 2010, more than 80,000 people submitted a total of 4,500 hours of video footage from 140 different nations.

The film Life in a Day was created with the intent to create a motion picture of what goes on in a typical day on planet Earth.  The requirements were simple; all footage must be about oneself and it all must occur on July 24, 2010. 

Partnering with YouTube, Ridley Scott Associates and LG Electronics, director Kevin Macdonald and film editor Joe Walker created an edited 94 minute and 57 second long motion picture surrounding these people’s daily routines and these routines only. 

Then, exactly one year later, they gave a special preview screening of the film in select theatres in honor of all the people whom submitted material the year before. 

A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I were on the Internet when she pointed to a banner on YouTube advertising the movie.  We watched the trailer and were instantly hooked.  We happened to see the banner on July 24^th, 2011, about 3 hours before a movie theatre in Fairfield was showcasing it.  As an impromptu date, we got in our car and drove 40 minutes to what can only be described as an awe-inspiring and humbling film.

Being that it was a special showing, the director and editor had some discussion bits before and after the film, which were quite interesting.  They said that from all the entrees they received, they could have easily made a film compilation centered only around ‘feet’ or of just clips about  ‘watermelon’.  This just goes to show how massive the number of submissions really were.

The movie itself was fantastic; I thought they did an excellent job with it.  Basically it opened with a happy drunk man on a bench just past midnight, claiming that today, July 24^th, was going to be the “best day ever”.  The film then continued throughout the daily routines of various people. 

The film was grouped into time frames so that it was ordered as the day progressed (morning, afternoon, night) and all the scenes from a particular time frame were kept together.  There was a woman waking up early to go sell her wares at the market, a man waking his son for school, and a boy shaving for the first time, just to name a few.  Activities, games, food and work were all included from different parts of the globe.   

Macdonald even sent off 400 video cameras to various parts of the world where people otherwise wouldn’t have been able to contribute in order to get a better representation.  They snail-mailed the video cards and hoped to get something back that they could use.

One person who received a camera was a little Asian boy who worked as a daily shoeshine.  He eagerly showed off his trade to the camera. 

My personal favorite was a man from Korea “North or South, it doesn’t matter” who had been traveling by bike for over 9 years all throughout Asia.  He found a fly in his soup and became nostalgic because this fly looked a lot like the Korean flies back home. 

Macdonald and Walker also sent out a variety of questions that they wanted people to answer.  What do you love?  Fear?  Etc.  This also really connected the universal aspect of the film.  From a young girl, “(I fear) any kind of monster” to an old man with a cowboy hat, “Politics scares me more than anything,” these questions were a great way to further tie in this theme of universality as well as give the film some additional dimensions.  They allowed depth, so it wasn’t just a midnight-to-midnight film.

The movie itself was very humbling by giving a sneak peek into the lives of all these different people here on Earth.  I mean, who can’t relate with Christopher, a man about to ask out the girl of his dreams and all the butterflies he has leading up to the event. 

The fact that each video is taken on the same day, July 24^th, 2010, is partially what makes the film so powerful.  You of course experience what you did on that day but this film grants you a rare insight.  It allows you to see our species as a collective whole, and it’s not very often that one gets the chance to do this.  The film is already in select theatres and if you get a chance to see it please do - I highly recommend it. Here are the locations and showtimes.