New Delhi: One of the most unusual movies of recent times is now available on a computer screen near you. Google has announced that Life in a Day is now available on YouTube.
"On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world recorded videos of their lives to take part in Life in a Day, a cinematic experiment to document a single day on earth. From more than 4,500 hours of footage recorded and uploaded to YouTube," Google posted on its official blog.
The movie is available on YouTube (http://youtu.be/JaFVr_cJJIY) with subtitles in 25 languages including Hindi.
Life in a Day was a project conceived by YouTube and carried out by Scott Free Productions, the movie and TV company run by acclaimed directors Ridley and Tony Scott. It was directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald from a concept conceived by YouTube and film producer Liza Marshall.
The idea was simple, yet in its execution very complex. The idea: ask YouTube users to videotape one full-day in their lives, July 24, 2010, and send in the video. The execution: from the footage, pull together a 90-minute movie.
The film's makers said when they put out the call for videotape back in July, they expected to receive some 10,000 hours of footage. They got 80,000 hours
In all, they received 4500 videos from a wide range of people in 192 countries: young filmmakers looking for a break, and individuals and families who simply had a story to tell.
There is a Korean man travelling the world on his bicycle trying to make the impossible, seem possible. There is a Japanese man - a single parent - caring for his son; a family dealing with cancer in Chicago; an Indian gardener working in Dubai; a shoe shine boy on the streets of Peru and a US man spurned by a woman he wants to date.
The film's makers said, oddly, they received a lot of video of people's feet. Surprisingly, they said, most of the footage was "happy material" and it was hard to find "dark material."
Few major events happened on the day, with the exception of people being trampled at a "Love Parade" in Germany. But the lack of any big "news" is what the makers seized upon.
The message of the movie - and its makers admit it sounds "corny" and "cliched" - is one of connection. Regardless of where we live, what language we speak, or our circumstances in life, we all need to connect with others to make our lives whole.
To further that point, YouTube streamed the premiere around the world live on the Web.
Macdonald - who won an Oscar for One Day in September about the 1972 Olympics hostage crisis - said making the movie gave him a new appreciation for the beauty and intimacy of amateur video and "the kind of things you can do with a little tiny camera you can't do with a big professional camera."
(With inputs from Reuters)
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