Life in a Day

LIFE IN A DAY
SCOTT FREE
RELEASED 17 June 2011

On 24th July 2010, Producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin McDonald asked people around the world to record their day and upload the video onto youtube. From the 4,500 hours of footage uploaded, the filmmakers have cut together a revealing, ninety-five minute look at the 21st century global community. Starting with a full moon (the filmmakers were unaware their chosen day was a full moon, so they received plenty of moon shots!), daybreak dawns and people of all nationalities wake up. There’s the toddler and his father in their cramped Tokyo flat who light a candle for the boy’s dead mother. A teenager has his first shave under the amused eyes of his father, who dispenses age-old wisdom in the form of toilet paper to stop bleeding knicks. A post-operation mother gets no respite from her bed-jumping son. And a lady opens her bazzar stall amongst the exotic sights of fresh meats and colourful fruits. People brush their teeth, pee, bathe, and cook breakfast. All around the world, whatever the cultural differences, we all have the same bodily needs when we wake up!

This is all complemented beautifully by a stunning Harry Gregson-Williams score, which is percussive/orchestral and really uplifting. Speaking of the music, there’s also a lovely Ellie Goulding song, as well as a traditional tribal mantra sung by three African ladies as they grind their flour on the sun-baked earth under huge stone mortars.

Unexpected moments of hilarity are captured in the hospital delivery room, as well as the grim reality of an abbatoir. I’m not quite sure how Kevin McDonald can be termed director when he obviously didn’t direct one second of footage (shouldn’t the term be something more like ‘Editor-in-Chief’?), but there is time-lapse photography which looks suspiciously ‘professional’ to me, so perhaps he had a hand in that.

What this film achieves is in capturing every aspect of human life, from the highs to the lows. It ends in a totally unexpected but poignant fashion, which perhaps shows more than anything just how the internet has enabled every human on the planet to come together, however big or small your day might have been.

FOUR OUT OF FIVE

Here’s the official youtube channel with loads of great video on it.