Life in a Day (2011) User Reviews

Just another extraordinary day

[siukong · 9/10 · 27 January 2011]

By its very nature, Life in a Day is an ambitious film. It seeks to encapsulate the human experience and all that it entails: life and death; love and hate; poverty and wealth; our dreams and our fears; and so on. I would argue that it does so successfully - or at least as successfully as possible for an undertaking of such scope (80,000 submissions totalling 4,500 hours of footage cut down to just an hour and a half!). It manages to strike a balance between the beauty of professional shooting and the raw visceral power of amateur footage. Very little seems contrived or awkward, and the editing and music do not usually distract from the simple energy of the vignettes being shown. In fact, the score is quite good and the editing only comes to the forefront when it's doing something meaningful - revealing links, emphasizing contrasts, or completing a thought.

A few stories are highlighted and revisited as the film progresses, but in general it never lingers too long on one scene. You would think this might hinder the presentation of some of the slower, more peaceful aspects of life, but it really doesn't. In fact, the lasting impression from this film is not one of chaos but one of unity and connection. That being said, at times the emotional roller-coaster you are being put through can be slightly bewildering. Some viewers might dislike how quickly they are brought from one emotion to another, but most will probably be too engaged to feel more than a twinge of regret that a particular scene couldn't last longer.

Some might argue that the more brutal realities of life are underrepresented (war, death, crime, prejudice, etc.), but I think that perception is probably due to how much we are bombarded with them by our daily news and entertainment. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of misery on display here (whether it be as simple as the sting of rejection or as profound as the fear of dying), but it's often more subtle than explicit and it's tempered by a positivity that sometimes seems to be lacking in our view of the world.

As a cinema enthusiast, this film excites me with the prospect of increasing interactivity and grassroots power. As a human, it gives me hope that we can live in harmony and understanding. And I'm usually quite the cynic.

Final summary: 9/10 | A

Exhilarating ride through 1 day of us living on Earth

[james-940 · 9/10 · 20 January 2011]

Just saw this at a preview and its mind blowing.

As you might expect from a Youtube content generated film, the clips and there are hundreds...are short, punchy and vary from fuzzy mobile footage, of a lonely girl talking at her phone, a guy asking a girl on a date, to timelapsed high definition clouds brewing into a dark thunderous storm, suns setting over Himalayan peak, and goats staring knowingly at me ...more goats please!

All walks of life, all parts of the world, everywhere on this little blue planet is the location, where shared themes common to all humanity are explored and humoured, exploited and tragically true of us all...there's a lingering sadness which underlies the frequent fun and humour so many of these clips portray...us making the best of what we have, which for so many is nothing much at all, and yes there is darkness, a lot of it, but what we do, our nature is to laugh at it, and celebrate the victory of being alive.

The resulting feature length montage is profound, emotional, hard to watch at times, and if you're not empathising with the rest of the world and grateful of your shared humanity by the time the snail minds its own business...you ain't' go no soul, noooooo, none!

Expect more of this, coz its all true, and just a glimpse of what the digital age can do.

Unbelievable

[Vince27 · 9/10 · 27 January 2011]

Life in a Day is a remarkable, emotional and an inspiring film full of life.

The film is shot by hundreds of people, from around the world, who sent their own personal videos into YouTube to make this stunning picture.

It is hard to really review the film because of what it is about: life. The film captures life for anything on Earth, whether it be a human or an animal. Cultures, religions, ways of life and philosophies are all touched upon in this amazing piece of history. Never before has the entire world been seen in a film such as it has in this picture.

People from all over the world are captured living as they do normally. There is no Hollywood, there are no actors, no directors and no writers. This film is about people.

It is obviously very difficult to explain what life is and I am not going to do it. But this film does it and it does it in a way anybody could understand.

Life in a Day is awe-inspiring in the way it captures life on Earth without being sentimental. At the end of the film, there won't be a soul in the world that isn't touched.

Amazingly real!

[mwolff5 · 9/10 · 27 January 2011]

This movie blew my mind! How can an independent movie be so great? This movie shows every day people in the rawest form. You just do not see this in any other film. It shows people real points of view, although very subtle. I thought it was very interesting to see so many people's fears and allowed the viewer to relate to this movie. I think the best part of it all is the fact that they allowed everyone to view it for FREE on you tube. No high-budget movie would do that! It is refreshing to see a movie being shown to all in its purest form and getting the buy in it is most deserved from the viewer. This movie should be show everywhere! Get out and see it!

The Power of Connection

[kerick08 · 2 February 2011]

Life in a Day is a historic cinematic experiment that attempts to capture what life looks like on one day, July 24th, 2010, around the entirety of the world. Thousands of hours of video were captured and then compiled to give a glimpse into what constitutes an average day amongst humanity.

This film is ultimately about connection; the connection of humans to one another and all of the mundane, regular, everyday things that we share despite our differences in culture, location, and upbringing. The fact that we all sleep. We all wake up in the morning. We all eat breakfast. We brush our teeth. We walk around. We smile. We love. We fear. We breathe. This film is an affirmation of the simple joys and sorrows that we experience merely as a result of living on this earth and being human. It is an affirmation of life at its rawest, truest, grittiest, and loveliest.

The summarization of this project can be found in the words a young teenage girl who vocalizes that, although she went through her whole day with nothing particularly out of the ordinary occurring, merely by partaking in this social experiment and something greater than just her own life, she was left with the feeling that something amazing was happening.

This simple statement speaks of our innate human desire to be a part of something that is larger than just ourselves. We long to belong, to connect, to be understood, and to be a part of something meaningful and worthwhile. This film speaks directly to this need and is able to transcend religion, culture, age, and gender to get at the heart of what it means to be a human being on earth today. What an amazing time capsule treasure for generations to come.

It engages the audience more than any documentary I've ever seen and leaves us with that profound and beautiful sensation that only the movies can give us.

[TheUnknown837-1 · 10/10 · 27 January 2011]

A father and son document their lives caring for someone they love, who is stricken with cancer. A man steals from a grocery store. An elderly couple, their hair pristine white, finally tie the knot. A young man tells his grandmother via a phone call that he is gay and that he hopes she can come to love his significant other as much as him. A group of women sing as they perform their daily duties. A photographer describes his way of life. People walk, go to work, talk to each other, talk to the camera, as they do in life. Because this is life. Life is extraordinary and life is mundane. And life, no matter from what perspective we examine it, is mesmerizing. And Kevin Macdonald's film "Life in a Day" is all of that and more.

This is one of the most enthralling, captivating, and magnificent works of art ever produced by human hands. And that is the honest truth, since it was, in deed, created by hundreds of people. Some of them filmmakers, most of them just ordinary Janes and Joes like you and me. Detailing what happened in their lives on July 24, 2010 and submitting their footage to Mr. Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott, they provided the materials for a genuine masterpiece. "Life in a Day" is a masterpiece not because it is artistic or cared for with creative tenderness (even though it is). It's a masterpiece because it is unabashedly honest and personable. I watched the movie on its live Youtube debut while it was simultaneously screened at the Sundance film festival. And for an hour and thirty-four minutes, I sat there captivated. Nothing could have torn me from my seat. Even though most of what I saw was fairly ordinary, things I could see walking down any street in any town. Paradoxical as it sounds, the mundane is mesmerizing.

In his movie, Mr. Macdonald and his hundreds of co-directors examines human life as fact and with honesty. He reveals the frailties, tenderness, brutality, horrors, and beauty of life in our world all within that short window of an hour and a half. It's so captivating because it's all real and these are stories that many of us can identify with, and others we hope never to. That's when the movie really becomes a tear-jerker. Sometimes there are long stretches of time on particular subjects, other times it's a montage accompanied by truly wonderful, ear-worm music. There is so much that I want to say about "Life in a Day" but I must restrict myself. Because the movie really has to be seen to be believed. I cannot possibly do this film's emotional and psychological justice simply by writing about it. All I should (and will) do is tell you my reaction, as I just have. This is one of my most personal reviews and it's fair because it's a personal film. It engages the audience more than any documentary could ever do (though I haven't seen "Shoah" yet) and it leaves us with that utterly profound and beautiful sensation that only a great picture can do. Even though it is very, very simple in a lot of ways. After all, Steven Spielberg once said "Oftentimes the simplest ideas are the best ones." He was right. Boy, was he right.

"Life in a Day" is a masterpiece.

Brilliant editing

[valleyjohn · 7/10 · 12 September 2011]

Imagine a film , shot in one day , by 80,000 people. it sounds unbelievable but that is exactly what "Life in day" is. This fascinating film is made from footage of YouTube clips from people asked to film there everyday activities and do you know what ? It really works.

How the director managed to edit down 4,500 hours of footage is beyond me but the final cut is excellent none the less.

If there ever was a film just about people , this is it. In a way it restores your faith in human nature when you watch this and it's also a film that is so fascinating the time flies by.

If your a fan of the YouTube phenomenon or not i recommend Life in a day.

At face value, engaging but peel away some layers and it is profound.

[CourtsideJack · 10/10 · 5 December 2011]

We have all had that moment. At a particular point in any given day, we wonder what someone is doing on the other side of the world at that exact moment. Life in a Day gives us just a glimpse of the world on a normal day and does so masterfully. I was very engaged by the flashy editing and creative montages but also very touched at some of the short sequences of humans in their most candid moments. This film gives us a window into life on the macro and the micro. It presents us with constant scene changes and slick editing to keep us interested and then gives us some very real and very profound moments.

This film manages to reward the viewer with quality and quantity, in the sense that it packs more into its 95 minutes that you can shake a stick at. Many of the stories in this movie could be their own documentaries themselves and make for a great watch. But it is not just the people, that make this movie great. Without giving anything away, this film will find ways to pull at your heartstrings in ways you may have never experienced with cinema. Everyone at some point in this film can relate to moments that are so visceral and so real, you may find your self reliving emotions you may not have expected, good and bad. I am being purposefully vague because any explanation of the events in this film will not do it justice. You need to experience it.

I highly recommend this film, not as a documentary, but as an experience and window into the human condition. Life, death, love, laughter, bodily function, work,war,heartbreak, fear. Just some of the emotions and experiences chronicled, this film does a great job of presenting it in an interesting way that keeps you wanting more. It is almost too bad that for most of the subjects, we are offered a very brief glimpse into their life only to be whisked halfway around the world and thrust into the home of another. The Scott brothers (Tony and Ridley) did a great job of keeping some cohesion as far as the chronological order of the day and the subject matter. With 4500 hours of footage from 192 countries, this was no small feat.

In closing, I hope more and more see this movie as it gives us an unbiased glimpse into the human condition. Approach the movie with an open mind and a little patience, and you will be rewarded. It is art such as this that can help us understand one another to hopefully be able to put aside our differences, if for just one day.

Unremarkable YouTube mash

[golfindia · 6/10 · 2 June 2011]

I watched this movie/documentary on the back of excellent reviews, and the caliber of the director and producer. The subject matter was interesting, asking the web community to capture events happening in their life or around them, on one day - thereby trying to capture globally the essence of living. However it seems the scope of the subject was too large, and difficult to condense and organise. As a result there is no plot, and only a loose structure around the time of the day, i.e. rising of the sun, breakfast, lunch... with all sorts of jumps to different subjects/locations/genres. That is OK if you want to sit through a random mish-mash of amateur clips, but I wondered what was the added value from 90 min of me surfing on YouTube. The answer is editorial choice - it's all in the art of sampling, compiling and presenting. To be fair, some parts were slick, but I wasn't sure about the sudden jumps throughout, with no apparent link. Was the style meant to be impartial and objective / shocking, to drive a point home / partisan, representing a sanitised view of the world (big sponsor backing through LG, who won't like a depressing story even if that was the reality of the user videos)? In the end, I felt the movie was trying to be all things to everyone. It seems this explains the popularity. But I failed to connect with the movie. Worse still, I felt really nauseous from the jerky camera movements. I went to the cinema to be entertained, not to induce vomitting. If you must watch this film, do it from a small screen. I wouldn't pay any money to watch it in the cinema - it's pointless.

July 24, 2010: Life out of Balance

[alexart-1 · 9/10 · 27 January 2011]

Morning, July 24, 2010. "It'll all end well," a man says to his younger son, who is currently throwing a tantrum. "It'll all end well," he reassures the boy. What will end well? This situation? This day? This life?

As Life in a Day progresses, the viewer travels through the lives on many, literally living vicariously through others. This amazing documentary, produced by the Scott Brothers (one of which is the famous Ridley Scott) and directed by Kevin MacDonald, travels all over the world on one all too regular day: July 24, 2010. Starting in the morning, a time filled with a happiness and renewal, and ending in the evening, a time of reconciling and sadness, Life in a Day profiles things that should be commonplace. The best part: these things are certainly not commonplace. The Earth is a beautiful place. Our lives are great. Why not display them on film? And that is just the point.

Like any great documentary, Life in a Day is a poignant film. But unlike many great documentaries, it follows a subject that should not be poignant. If you have ever seen Amelie, you know the great beginning sequence. An unseen narrator shows us two glasses dancing on a table, a firefly dashing across a yellow-lighted French street, and a man erasing the name of a dead friend out of his address book. Imagine a movie like this entire opening sequence and you've got Life in a Day. Beautiful imagery, such as a teenage boy shaving for the first time, is common throughout the entire film. One shot especially, that of a skydiver falling to Earth, is probably the best part of the entire film. In a scene reminiscent of Koyaanisqatsi, a woman tumbles through the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere. It is quiet for a brief minute, and then, as the clouds engulf her, the noise of the people seeps in. The couple laughs together, sharing a time like no other together.

And yet, there are some truly disturbing scenes. At a Love Parade, multiple people are shown getting trampled to death. A few rush over to help the fallen victims, but many carry on, screaming to their heart's content. One part that people will surely have a reaction to is the slaughterhouse scene. Fair warning: a cow is shot in the head twice. The cow is later decapitated graphically. As these scenes show, sometimes life isn't always great. The images may be ugly and bleak, but they are always beautiful.

Life in a Day is a beautiful time capsule of people in the new millennium. Simply put, it's a wonderful portrait of people who do regular things. On a more complex level, it's a documentary about how lives are constantly changing. Every action we do changes the next action that is going to happen. Time is important. It's also shaping these actions. What's going to happen tomorrow? After all, as Scarlett O'Hara once said, "Tomorrow is a new day."

Reality Cinema

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 8 September 2011]

I can see why people would be overwhelmed by this. And not only people who know the guys who submitted footage for this, but quite a lot of people. And while they tried to put the videos together in a fashion that has a narrative (or something similar to it), it still shows, that we have random people having random discussions (ranging from funny to tragic to inspiring).

It is nicely done and I pretty much enjoyed it. The "filmmakers" (or the ones who cut together the videos they received) had a difficult job to do. Going through all that footage is not that easy. Especially because you have no idea what you will find in it. And while the movie is more "real" than reality TV, it still didn't ring masterpiece in my book. But that is taste for you ... We are all different as this movie does show us to an extend ...

Amazing insight into the way the world lives one day

[roger-verdurmen · 9/10 · 9 February 2011]

Without a doubt one of the worlds best examples of co-creation or even crowd sourcing if you like. How 4500 hours of film were carefully judged until 150 hours of film could serve as the basis for this 1,5 hour jewel will never seize to amaze me. The film touches every single emotion from joy to fear to disgust to sadness and relief, and does so in a totally natural way, probably as life itself does. Maybe somewhat besides the point of the film but what struck me was the notion that in whatever direction I would travel, except maybe slightly north, in general people are worse off than in my country. You could say seeing life on our planet makes me appreciate my particular life more. Probably it was about time something would...

idea more compelling than reality

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 30 October 2016]

People were asked to film their lives during 24th July, 2010. Thousands contributed and Kevin Macdonald edited the 4500 hours of footage from 192 countries into about ninety minutes. It basically follows chronologically through the day. There are also sections with a specific theme like hunting for food, and weddings. There are a few prepared questions that people answer in their footage. This is produced by Scott Free Productions and YouTube. As expected, most of this is shaky-camera amateur work. Sometimes, there are beautiful shots. There are plenty of intriguing everyday stuff that are not usually seen in your Hollywood fare. There are some shocking moments. There is a crowd crush situation and some war-torn footages. Overall, there is an unity about the human existence being shown. The idea may be more compelling than the actual execution. This becomes almost archival material for future generations. As for the final girl, it starts off as a tearjerker. It turns a little narcissism which is fitting for Youtube, but then it becomes a nice wrap for the whole movie.

If this is life... yawn

[Amadio · 4/10 · 27 January 2011]

First of all I must confess; I missed the middle of the film because I fell asleep. The idea of the film was wonderful; people all over the world send in clips of/from their lives and the directors put together a 'collage' and make a film. I've just seen the Sundance screening on YouTube. As was said in the Q&A afterwards, there are as many versions as there are directors willing to take the scenes and put them together. This version, however, for me, was slow and boring. What a waste. So many amazing clips must have been sent, and what was put together focused on individuals for way too long. Poorly shot, hand-held filming is not an issue. Labouring a point is. The directors said that they had no idea what they would do with the footage and that they had to make a structure. This 'structure' did not hang together for me at all. The directors started out calling it an experiment, and then later called it a film. It is an experiment, and I do not find it to be a very successful one other than to show editors what not to do. I really hope someone else has access to the raw footage and makes something more interesting, motivating, uplifting and representative of the human spirit.

Ordinary Wonderful World!

[rbferre · 10/10 · 12 January 2012]

How many times have you wondered how a human being lives in another city of this planet? Not something we see in the movies, just a regular, ordinary, mundane, and simple human being.

How many times have you thought how life is short and how you should do to get the most of it.

Well, this movie is about these questions and much more. Using raw footage sent by people from different backgrounds and 192 countries -

which makes us think how powerful the media is - it takes to a fascinating journey to witness a long needed reality check. Fascinating in its own way, because the scenes you see are ordinary. And that is what the enchantment is... art from the ordinary.

It is not a reality show, nor a fictional movie. Life in a Day is just... Life. With all frustrations , discoveries, sadness, and hopes. Just life.

I watched this movie not expecting too much. And boy was I wrong - this kept me mesmerized for 94 minutes. And at the end, you will ask yourself if you are doing the best from your existence in this planet. Not to be missed!

One word - amazing.

[Ruth_91 · 8/10 · 28 January 2011]

For an hour and a half, I sat back and experience Life in a Day - what do you think happened on July 24th, 2010? Out of 4500 hours of footage, coming from countries all around the world, featuring people of all ages and walks of life, in all conditions of life, with all different kinds of quality of film, the editors and film makers have created something really special.

It was an exploration of humanity. It spanned from the earliest hours of the morning to the few minutes before midnight. It was amazing to see how creative people can be. The simplest aspects of their day - things they consider ordinary - become extraordinary. There was some beautiful imagery. It was filled with montages (it would have to have been - they had to be very careful with their editing and pacing), most of which start of on a light note, but become more serious. A beautiful score and a wonderful soundtrack compliment it. It's funny and heartbreaking and emotional and engages with the audience by allowing us to relate via the only thing every single person on earth can relate to - being human. Our humanity.

Certain people were focused on. The man from Korea who has been cycling around the world for over nine years, having visited 190 countries. He says he's not from North or South - just Korea. He hopes for reconciliation. "The impossible is possible". A gay man coming out to his grandmother. A couple renewing their wedding vows on their 50th anniversary. One of my favourite images was of people lighting floating lanterns and sending them up to the sky.

People were asked to say what they loved, and what they feared. It's not all light-hearted. I've said this was an exploration of humanity - we get the full range of human emotion and experiences. Love, joy, fear, birth, marriage, celebration, religion, war, anger, despair and death. It wouldn't be human if there was no death. People with cancer. People admitting to fear death. Some chilling footage of Love Parade in Germany - when there was that terrible stampede in the tunnel. People probably went along thinking they would just film the festival. A news photographer showing us his home in Afghanistan, juxtaposed with a wife in America, waiting to skype with her husband, who is fighting the war. A montage of humanity at what I felt was its most violent, wild, crazy.

I won't forget the last 'Life in a Day'. A woman who stated she waited all day for something exciting to happen, but it didn't. Nothing happened, and it often doesn't. Life isn't amazing everyday, she says. I'm not special - but she still somehow felt that today was special anyway. She probably didn't even dream of making it into this film. The feeling that this film left me with was hope. So many people in this film had such hope for the future. It's wonderful to see.

Snail Eats Label

[tedg · 22 November 2011]

Life in a day: The Scott brothers sponsor a film with YouTube. I suppose the idea from YouTube's side is that ordinary people make films that are real, and that allow us to deeply share humanity... the kind of films you can find on Google's YouTube.

This film really is good, but it is precisely because it has what YouTube cannot give: coherence and something like a zen long form essay on engagement. It is, in other words, composed, with themes, and blending; contradictions (but without comment); differences unified. Sound and song that binds; rhythms that you can understand throughout as the rhythms of life.

Some of the people you meet, you simply fall in love with, but this would not be the case if you saw them alone. It only works because of the composition, the story that we weave that bridges the thing. Some of the scenes were clearly shot knowing the whole, and that takes away some of the truth of the thing, and truth matters here. But that introduces only minor friction.

The final shot could stand alone. I'm not sure if it is computer generated or not: a snail progresses on a billiard-sized white ball until it encounters a label that says 'mind your own business.' The snail eats the label. I think YouTube would like to brand itself as a video FaceBook in the sense of allowing anyone to see anyone, with the assumption that everyone is interesting in some way.

This is engaging and personal. The source material may well have come through a YouTube- like process, but what this shows it that you need long form, a story and some talent to make things that matter.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

I would not have chosen to watch it but overall am glad I did.

[vlsanfield · 7/10 · 5 July 2012]

I watched the film a life in a day as part of my A2 media course at college. The film focuses on the 24th July 2010 and what average, normal everyday people from all corners of the globe get up to in their life over the course of a 24 hour period. My first impressions of the film were that I had never experienced a documentary like this before. The producers used an unorthodox approach to filming with no narration which would be expected in a documentary. I would not have chosen to watch it but overall am glad I did.

I do feel that there were many good features of the film. For example it allowed us to experience how people lived all over the world. We had an insight to cultures and traditions which would be highly unlikely to experience in any other way. We listened to people's opinions on subjects such as love and fears. And learned that even though ever human being is unique where ever we are in the world, be it the slums of Mumbai or the bustling cities in the USA we still share the same norms and values when it comes to loving and caring about things like family. Also it delivers a complete range of life experiences from birth (a baby giraffe is born) to the tragic death of people in the love parade. However it is not flawless. In places I found it to be tedious and dull. It often lingered for too long on clips that were not particularly interesting and on clips that I felt were very interesting were over far too quickly. A perfect example was the little shoe shine boy in a far eastern country I would have liked to see his life more however we didn't. In my opinion overall I enjoyed life in a day even though in some sections of the film it could become repetitive and tedious in places. It was interesting witnessing all the different cultures and how they lived their lives but sometimes it got boring. The best bits of the film I feel were when the people talked about their views on life and it was interesting to see the contrast on opinions in different areas on the planet.

In a nutshell it was fantastic.

[twilightasm15 · 9/10 · 21 April 2011]

This film is incredible beyond belief. There's not much for me to criticize at all. The flow of clips got ever so slightly off beat...meaning it got a bit boring. Also I don't remember there being subtitles. I kind of want to know what they are all saying.I do understand that there were a lot of different languages and they probably didn't have the budget to translate so much for the release at Sundance. I hope they subtitle it when it hits theaters in June. I loved this movie with all my heart and when it hits theaters, I am going. Also when it goes to DVD I'm getting my copy. There isn't a good reason not to like this film. It is happy, funny, heart-wrenching and overall one of the greatest movies I have seen.

The last fifteen minutes....

[rperry-17 · 7/10 · 4 November 2011]

I'm going to review this based on just the last fifteen minutes of the film.

I have not seen the whole film yet, just the trailers and the last fifteen minutes.

Review:

"My God. Could not be imagined, could not be written, could not have been foreseen.

Astounding ending, but ultimately at peace with life. In a Day. My God."

The film quality is way above what you might expect, as is the sound. This is not a collection of home video, but some astounding shots. The story itself is unwritten, just assembled, but incredibly well.

I think it will take some time for this work to be recognised for what it is.

As will the vision of the people who came up with the idea. The result is surely way beyond what they could ever have imagined.

Life as we know it on film

[StevePulaski · 9/10 · 30 January 2011]

In late July, filmmaker Kevin MacDonald asked the Youtube community to film themselves on July 24, 2010 and submit the video to the Life in a Day Youtube page. The videos would be edited and made into a ninety minute feature film that would premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. It was such a creative idea I couldn't wait to get my Flip and record myself, sadly, the line "must be 18 years or older" prevented me. Whatever, I was still excited to see what others would film and submit to this film. Who wouldn't? Kevin MacDonald stated "it would be kind of like a time capsule that people in the future, maybe twenty, thirty, forty fifty, a hundred, two hundred years could say wow, that's what life was like." To be fair, Life in a Day did come with a price. The submission rate was unprecedented, and I assume lots of people didn't make the final cut for the film. If they did, their clips were butchered to probably lest than a third of what they were. A film like this has many positives, but a lot of negatives as well.

When documenting a film of this large magnitude, there are a plethora of negatives I must state. One, I feel like the people that produced their own clips were cheated in a way. Both Kevin MacDonald and Ridley Scott are smart people with a lot of knowledge, but it is sort of scummy that they get to collect the check for their small part in the film, while the true stars were the Youtube community. To my knowledge, the "actors" in the film don't see a dime of what this movie sees. Probably just a typed letter on Youtube.

Another aspect that sort of brings the film down is the fact that there are numerous scenes that take place outside of America, or in different countries. That's perfectly fine, I was interested in seeing what people in Egypt, Africa, Europe, Asia, or where ever would film. The downside is the film is absent of subtitles, making it impossible to figure out what these people are saying. I bet the producers themselves had no idea what these people were saying either. You can see what they're doing, but that only gives you the vague representation of what is going on.

Now that I've dug through the flaws, lets talk about the positives. For the most part, the film is shot rather well. Keep in mind, thousands of cameras were used to shoot this movie without a doubt. Different mega pixel count, different size, quality, capability, editing, whatever. It's hard to make something look that nice when numerous cameras were involved. Some stuff in this film was mobile phone footage which looked well. Whoever cleaned up the audio/video on here is a technical genius.

My favorite scene in this film was probably the homosexual teenager confessing his true sexual orientation to his grandmother. You can see that he is truly nervous, and scared of her reactions to his love life. We don't hear the grandma, but we see the teen's reactions. This is the kind of thing that belongs in this movie. In ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, etc years homosexuals will hopefully be accepted and not ridiculed for their being, and teens won't have to worry about confessing what they believe is right. They'll be accepted, and free from homophobic bullying.

Numerous other scenes in Life in a Day are very heartfelt and emotional. The end clip is very near and dear to your hearts, and the film does it's best to fit these clips in chronological order because there is no true storyline. Life in a Day is an inventive piece of film that I had the pleasure to see while it was streaming Thursday January 27, 2011 on it's own Youtube channel live from The Sundance Film Festival. Such a surreal experience, and such an unforgettable film.

Starring: The Youtube Community. Directed by Kevin MacDonald and Ridley Scott.

I can't decide whether I like it or not...

[annabel_jasmine · 6/10 · 27 June 2012]

I had to watch Life in a Day at college for the next part of my A-Levels as it focuses on New Media Technology. This film is one of our main case studies, when I found out that I was going to watch this film I wasn't very happy about the idea but now I have watched it I can see why people rate it so much as it is one of those films that you can watch over and over again and notice new things.

When I first started watching the film I thought it was odd as it didn't seem real, the more I watched though I understood that people were happy to be taking part in the film and wanted to help other people understand what everybody else does every day and how people's lives are all different.

I thought the film was really good as you were able to understand what some people have to go through. I was also impressed with the way the film was edited as it helped you understand what was going on more as it was edited into a kind of story line throughout the whole day. I really like the film as it is a somewhat time capsule and in years to come people will be able to watch this film and understand how we used to live and I think it would be a great idea if something like this could be made every so often.

However I didn't enjoy some of the footage that was added into the film, I understand that the producer and director wanted to get all different types of things in however you were never warned about some of the shocking clips that was in the film. Another reason why I didn't enjoy the film is because it seemed surreal as everybody on the film seemed happy and everybody knows that it isn't true as there are plenty of other things going on in the world. For example, people in poverty, I understand they are happy with what they have got however they were making out they were on top of the world and nothing could be better.

My overall impression is that I can understand why the film is a ground breaking film as it was really good, edited well, and made you understand everything differently. Everybody has different views on different things and I suppose it just depends on what you are interested in to whether you will enjoy the film or not. I'm happy that it helped YouTube become a more developed website and more well known to other people as people needed to understand that it wasn't just a film for videos and that the videos on there should actually mean something.

Building awareness enables empathy and responsibility.

[Sun_is_i · 10/10 · 24 November 2011]

What a fantastic film.

As much as I love conventional scripted film and actors, I always know deep down that none of it is 100% real, therefore I am never fully locked in for the whole duration of the movie and any emotions I feel are very short lived.

I had to keep telling myself, 'This is real' to counter act the habits of thinking 'this is not real' and this really made the experience unlike any other, even with documentaries they are often over scripted and distort the truth.

I realize that to build empathy and responsibility we all need to become more aware of our surroundings. This is why the internet has had such a positive impact on human rights, charities, and freedom of speech, which motivates democratic political changes too improve the planet.

I heard just yesterday that the US Congress was trying to pass a bill that would censor the worlds internet. Although online piracy is a strong motive, the real reason is to prevent the worlds people from having a democratic voice. As the more we all see the starvation, inequality, war, corruption, deceit, the more we all strive to make constructive changes to a this over protected sick system.... The vast majority actually want a kinder more equal planet, but right now the system is motivated by profits, and profits motivate dictatorship and corruption.

We must realize our ability to use technology to create a new system of global wealth beyond traditional hierarchy and suffering. It will take time, and we must continue to produce films which show the world as a whole, for us to really understand our connection to the environment. (Watch the Zeitgeist movement movies for free on youtube to understand more about resource based economies)

It makes me upset to know that so many people fear death. But hopefully like me, people will grow to understand their real identity is the whole of planet earth, imagine looking at planet earth from a spaceship, we must learn to see earth as an organism like a tree, and people are just leaves on the tree, they die, but the tree still lives on as something greater. Its a big step to take and the thought process doesn't solidify over night,(took me two years to solidify this awareness) but, now I see all suffering as 'my own' as 'I am' the organism, and all joy as 'mine' too... and therefore we have a responsibility to remove all religion which promotes the thought processes of individualism and division. we have a responsibility make to make everyone's life blissful. AS I AM YOU, AND WE ARE ALL.

This movie enables us to think like ONE organism should.

In spite of covering the whole world, and inviting everybody to join in, there remains a feeling that something's missing.

[johnnyboyz · 6/10 · 1 August 2013]

The prospect of wading through all of that footage received depicting a day in the life of a human-being must have been one of the most daunting things any editor has ever faced in the history of cinema. In the long run, the narrowing down of the material into what we get might very well be the sole glory of Life in a Day, a piece featuring a collection of amateur snapshots of what somebody might do on a typical day in July of 2010 recorded via cell phone and digital camera. It is a project synonymous with where we stand today in moving image production: everyone's a film-maker, very few are any good at it but all of it is accessible 24/7 anyway – why not embrace the idea of such a thing and boil it down into a 90 minute film? In spite of the skills shown in dealing with not only the quantity of material, but also the gulf in how different it all is to the next project creators Kevin MacDonald and Ridley Scott received, there remains an unaddressed sensibility about the whole thing which is unshakable and, frankly, quite annoying.

Let's not look past the fact that Life in a Day was an experiment, but how successful is an experiment when several minutes are dedicated to people doing their toiletries; most of the content isn't anything you weren't already aware of, culturally nor socially, and when the best chunks of it depict "real life" people of whom I've already seen depicted in "fictional" neo-realist films more interestingly? I am, of course, referring to the likes of the goat farmers based on what look like the Uzbek steppes. Them there is wife-less Japanese hoarder living with his infant daughter in an apartment as well as the sequences that come with a young English lad whose back in his home town just after graduating from university to see his father again. Veterans of mostly any film by the Iranian Makhmalbaf film-making dynasty will have had their fill of steppe sheppards doing what they do and saying what they say in better films which, oddly, felt more real. Likewise, anybody who has seen anything by Ozu or, much more recently, 2008 Japanese film Tokyo Sonata, will slip into enjoying watching the grace and subtlety of the Japanese family – the two in question of which get up, greet one another and then light some incense for what appears to be their deceased wife/mother.

The film begins at 3am on the day in question, July the 24th 2010, and we're everywhere from Virginia to Pakistan. People comb their hair, arrive at work and breastfeed – admittedly, there is an eerie beauty to proceedings so simple and so mundane. The morning arrives with market places bustling and the like; this all gives way to a number of universal depictions of people in random places from the afternoon to the evening and then late at night again. There are attempts at parallels between people. The coverage of the aforementioned Japanese family with their lost feminine participant depicts a youngster quiet, unassuming and acceptant of their mother's death. They are measured and calm, in spite of the fact they live quite roughly. Cut to America, and a spoilt kid throwing a tantrum over something-or-another while in occupancy of his lavish family abode greets us. He has a mother and she appears to be as close to death as the Japanese already was; there seems to be some sort of distinction being made as to how different children in different cultures, or nations, behave. Later on, the piece will change its tract when it depicts an American woman's tearful goodbyes to her lover over a webcam as he serves in The Middle East – this is directly after depicting what an Afghan woman's day might consist of during as she too lives within the confines of said conflict.

Regardless, one cannot look past the paradox at the heart of Life in a Day which the production team cannot trump and that is, if the film is meant as a unique snapshot of what people got up to on that chosen day, how much of it is activity genuinely suited to what someone might have done that day and how much of it merely fell into the trap of being the very thing that inspired it? That is to say, goofy clowning around in the vain attempt at fame all captured via the digital eye and placed where everyone can see it. But there are truths, cold truths which you wish the producers had found more of during their unenviable task: the cutting from interior footage of an abattoir to two people enjoying a burger at a roadside van and not really thinking any more of it is a cold instance of life's inherent ways.

The film is at its best during these contemplative sequences and at its worst when it essentially becomes the very thing it should have evolved out of: that is to say, extended segments on what's in a person's pocket or what people eat or how they get around – content which is good only for the doldrums of Youtube's infinite online data banks of moving image. On balance, points can only be awarded for the idea behind the film. In spite of coming at you with this mantra of diversity and peace-hoping, universal love, the film's consensus is that of a bleak one. Mankind is ultimately depicted as a savage; aggressive, sometimes confused and often quite weak species – a species who appears to know what the issue is but has absolutely no clue as to how to attain the solution.

Sometimes OK is worse than bad

[raybid · 5/10 · 14 June 2011]

An intriguing idea, and the makers should be applauded for trying it, but I came away thinking - "That was just like watching someone else surf Youtube for 90 minutes". Some of the clips were amazing, moving, inspiring, but so are millions of clips already on Youtube, and I get to choose which ones I watch to match my tastes.

One major negative mark, the film contains 2 scenes of graphic animal slaughter, one is quite lengthy, I found this quite offensive, made me wish even more that I wasn't watching someone else's choice of clips.

It was OK though, it held my attention, it was superbly edited, just fundamentally flawed in its conception, an experiment gone astray, but still OK, but when a film costs so much to go and see, OK just isn't enough is it? Go surf Youtube instead.