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| editing = [[Joe Walker (film editor)|Joe Walker]]
| studio = [[Scott Free Productions]]<br />[[YouTube]]<br />[[LG Corp]]
| distributor = [[National Geographic
| released = {{Film date|df=yes|2011|01|21|YouTube|2011|01|27|Sundance}}
| runtime = 95 minutes<ref name="BBFC"/>
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==Production==
The film was produced by [[Scott Free Productions]] and the YouTube video sharing site. The film was distributed by [[National Geographic
The film was the creation of a partnership among [[YouTube]], [[Ridley Scott|Ridley Scott Associates]] and [[LG electronics]], announced on 6 July 2010. Users sent in videos supposed to be recorded on 24 July 2010, and then [[Ridley Scott]] produced the film and edited the videos into a film with [[Kevin Macdonald (director)|Kevin Macdonald]] and film editor Joe Walker, consisting of footage from some of the contributors. All chosen footage authors are credited as co-directors.<ref name=Reuters_20100707>{{cite
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The film's music was written by composer and producer [[Harry Gregson-Williams]], along with [[Matthew Herbert]]. The film's opening song, written by Herbert, was performed by English singer-songwriter [[Ellie Goulding]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Goulding |first=Ellie |url=http://www.cherrytreerecords.com/profiles/blogs/britsfilm-studiosshowbiz |title=Brits/Film Studios/Showbiz! |publisher=Cherrytree Records |date=19 January 2011 |accessdate=27 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708143223/http://www.cherrytreerecords.com/profiles/blogs/britsfilm-studiosshowbiz |archive-date=8 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The film also features the song "Jerusalem" by [[Kieran Leonard]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Leonard |first=Kieran |url=http://kieranleonardmusic.co.uk/main.html |title=Kieran Leonard |website=kieranleonardmusic.co.uk }}</ref> and "Future Prospect" by Biggi Hilmars.▼
<ref>{{cite web |url=http://picasaweb.google.com/117103434961603914210/LifeInADayCredits02?feat=directlink&gsessionid=qvTx8kBNQfoaMdMpBQjpQQ#5572857861624792850 |title=Still from Life in a Day credits, director Kevin Macdonald and |accessdate=21 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220623222502/http://picasaweb.google.com/117103434961603914210/LifeInADayCredits02?feat=directlink&gsessionid=qvTx8kBNQfoaMdMpBQjpQQ#5572857861624792850 |archive-date=23 June 2022 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://picasaweb.google.com/117103434961603914210/LifeInADayCredits02?feat=directlink&gsessionid=qvTx8kBNQfoaMdMpBQjpQQ#5572857880443906834 |title=Still from Life in a Day credits, co-directors list part 1 |accessdate=21 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220623222502/http://picasaweb.google.com/117103434961603914210/LifeInADayCredits02?feat=directlink&gsessionid=qvTx8kBNQfoaMdMpBQjpQQ#5572857880443906834 |archive-date=23 June 2022 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://picasaweb.google.com/117103434961603914210/LifeInADayCredits02?feat=directlink&gsessionid=qvTx8kBNQfoaMdMpBQjpQQ#5572857903770001058 |title=Still from Life in a Day credits, co-directors list part 2 |accessdate=21 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220623222502/http://picasaweb.google.com/117103434961603914210/LifeInADayCredits02?feat=directlink&gsessionid=qvTx8kBNQfoaMdMpBQjpQQ#5572857903770001058 |archive-date=23 June 2022 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
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▲The film's music was written by composer and producer [[Harry Gregson-Williams]], along with [[Matthew Herbert]]. The film's opening song, written by Herbert, was performed by English singer-songwriter [[Ellie Goulding]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Goulding |first=Ellie |url=http://www.cherrytreerecords.com/profiles/blogs/britsfilm-studiosshowbiz |title=Brits/Film Studios/Showbiz! |publisher=Cherrytree Records |date=19 January 2011 |accessdate=27 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708143223/http://www.cherrytreerecords.com/profiles/blogs/britsfilm-studiosshowbiz |archive-date=8 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The film also features the song "Jerusalem" by [[Kieran Leonard]]<ref>{{cite web |last=Leonard |first=Kieran |url=http://kieranleonardmusic.co.uk/main.html |title=Kieran Leonard |website=kieranleonardmusic.co.uk |access-date=12 September 2011 |archive-date=2 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402104918/http://kieranleonardmusic.co.uk/main.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> and "Future Prospect" by Biggi Hilmars.
Macdonald told ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' that the project was initially conceived as a way to commemorate the fifth birthday of YouTube, and that he wanted to "take the humble YouTube video, ... and elevate it into art."<ref name="WSJ20110722">Dodes, Rachel, [https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/07/22/life-in-a-day-director-kevin-macdonald-aims-to-elevate-youtube-videos-into-art/?mod=google_news_blog "‘Life in a Day' Director Aims to Elevate YouTube Videos Into Art"] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200803040238/https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/07/22/life-in-a-day-director-kevin-macdonald-aims-to-elevate-youtube-videos-into-art/?mod=google_news_blog archive]), edited interview transcript in ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]''{{'s}} "SpeakEasy" section, 22 July 2011.</ref> Editor Joe Walker said that as he understood it, the concept for the crowd-sourced documentary came from Ridley Scott's production company "Scott Free U.K." and from YouTube, while Macdonald explained more specifically that "the inspiration for me was a British group from the 1930s called the [[Mass Observation]] movement. They asked hundreds of people all over Britain to write diaries recording the details of their lives on one day a month and answer a few simple questions. ... These diaries were then organised into books and articles with the intention of giving voice to people who weren't part of the "elite" and to show the intricacy and strangeness of the seemingly mundane."<ref name="Wired2011029">Watercutter, Angela, [https://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/07/life-in-a-day-interviews/all/1 "Life in a Day Distills 4,500 Hours of Intimate Video Into Urgent Documentary"] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200804004535/https://www.wired.com/2011/07/life-in-a-day-interviews/ archive]), ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' magazine, 29 July 2011.</ref>
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Macdonald expressed to ''The Wall Street Journal'' that the film "could only be made in the last five years because ... you can get enough people who will have an understanding of how to shoot something."<ref name="WSJ20110722"/> Walker told ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' magazine's Angela Watercutter that the film "couldn't have been made without technology. Ten years ago it would've been impossible."<ref name="Wired2011029"/> Macdonald explained that YouTube "allowed us to tap into a pre-existing community of people around the world and to have a means of distributing information about the film and then receiving people's 'dailies'. It just wouldn't have been organizationally or financially feasible to undertake this kind of project pre-YouTube."<ref name="Wired2011029"/>
The filmmaking team "used YouTube's ability to collect all of this material and then we had this sort of sweatshop of people, all multilingual film students, to sift through this material. It couldn't have been done any other way. Nobody had ever done a film like this before, so we had to sort of make it up as we went along."<ref name="Wired2011029"/>
Walker, whose team edited the whole film over seven weeks, remarked to Adam Sternbergh of ''[[The New York Times]]'' that "The analogy is like being told to make [[Salisbury Cathedral]], and then being introduced to a field full of rubble. You have to start looking for buttresses and things that connect together."<ref name="NYT20110722">Sternbergh, Adam, [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/around-the-world-in-one-day-on-youtube.html "Around the World in One Day"] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20210716194135/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/around-the-world-in-one-day-on-youtube.html archive]), ''[[The New York Times]],'' 22 July 2011.</ref> Walker indicated that a team of roughly two dozen researchers, chosen both for a cinematic eye and proficiency with languages, watched, logged, tagged, and rated each clip on a scale of one to five stars.<ref name="NYT20110722"/> Walker remarked that "the vast amount of material was two stars", and that he and director Kevin Macdonald reviewed the four-star and five-star rated clips.<ref name="NYT20110722"/>
In addition to the star rating system, the editing/selecting team also organised the 80,000 clips according to countries, themes and video quality as part of the selection process, and further had to convert from 60 different [[frame rate]]s to make the result cinematically acceptable. All the logging and researching was done using the [[Quantum Corporation|Quantum]] [[CatDV]] media asset management software.<ref name="Wired2011029"/><ref>{{cite web|last1=Fox|first1=David|title=Metadata Mashup: Life in a Day on camera|url=http://www.tvbeurope.com/metadata-mashup-life-in-a-day-on-camera/|website=TVBEurope|accessdate=19 August 2017}}</ref>
==Themes and content==
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Macdonald explained that the film "doesn't have a traditional story or a traditional narrative, but it has thematic movement [and] recurring characters."<ref name="WSJ20110722"/> He praised certain specific contributions, including "the most technically amazing skydiving shot I have ever seen in any film" and "a hand going up to a window pane and picking a fly off and filming the hand walking through the house and letting the fly go—and you see the fly take off in the distance."<ref name="WSJ20110722"/> Asked if there any particular submission crystallised the film's theme, Macdonald cited "the family who had been going through cancer."<ref name="WSJ20110722"/> More generally, Macdonald praised the immediacy that a [[handycam]] permits.<ref name="WSJ20110722"/>
Ian Buckwalter of [[Washingtonian (magazine)|''Washingtonian'']] magazine said that "the familiar beats of the day (were) cut together to show that we're actually far more similar than we are different."<ref name="Wash20110727">Buckwalter, Ian, [http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/artsfun/afterhours/20289.html “Another Earth,” “Life in a Day,” and “Cowboys & Aliens”: Movie Tickets] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20150703070004/http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/afterhours/film/another-earth-life-in-a-day-and-cowboys-aliens-movie-tickets.php archive]), "Arts and Events" section of [[Washingtonian (magazine)|''Washingtonian'']] magazine online, posted 27 July 2011.</ref> ''[[The Washington Post]]''{{'s}} Michael O'Sullivan similarly noted that "the people whose lives form the spine of ''Life'' feel familiar... Their hopes and joys, disappointments and fears are our own."<ref name="WashPost20110729">O'Sullivan, Michael, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/life-in-a-day,1208303/critic-review.html "Life in a Day" (Critic's Pick)] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20110730182123/http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/life-in-a-day%2C1208303/critic-review.html archive]), The ''[[Washington Post]], 29 July 2011.</ref> Liz Braun, writing in the ''[[Toronto Sun]]'', said that "The overall sense of the project appears to be: It's good to be alive. ... According to the film, there are things that divide us as humans, but far more things that unite us."<ref name="TorontoSun20110729">Braun, Liz, (QMI Agency), [http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/28/life-in-a-day-a-free-wheeling-look-at-human-events "'Life in a Day' a free-wheeling look at human events"] ([https://archive.
Sharkey described the progression of the film: "Beginning with videos that start pre-dawn then moving through morning, afternoon and evening, ... the rituals that define a day begin to emerge. Beyond an extraordinary range of cultures, terrain and styles reflected, which are captivating on their own, the film stands as a stirring reminder of how ordinary and yet eclectic humanity can be. If ''Life in a Day'' is any measure, we are a quirky, likeable, unpredictable and yet predictable bunch."<ref name="LATimes20110729"/>
Yumi Goto of [[Time (magazine)|''TIME LightBox'']] remarked that "the most striking aspect of this documentary is that it's the first crowdsourced, user-generated content to hit the big screen."<ref name="Time20110801">Goto, Yumi, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110917040929/http://lightbox.time.com/2011/08/01/life-in-a-day/ "From Midnight to Midnight: Life in a Day"] ([https://archive.
''[[The New York Times]]''{{'}} Adam Sternbergh wrote that "the film's most memorable moments are the ones of unexpected intimacy. ... The film aims to tell the story of a planet, but it's the vulnerability of these individual moments, contributed as part of a larger project, that lingers."<ref name="NYT20110722"/> The ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''{{'}} Betsy Sharkey wrote that "The fact that we all experienced that day is part of what gives the documentary an unusual kind of relatability."<ref name="LATimes20110729"/>
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Liz Braun, writing in the ''[[Toronto Sun]]'', said that "a lot is predictable" and "It's all familiar for the most part, and it's all mildly interesting," but also cited several "sequences that fully engage a viewer emotionally."<ref name="TorontoSun20110729"/> Andrew Schenker from [[Slant Magazine]] criticised the film by stating: "Only a few snippets escape the uncritical [[narcissism]] that the film celebrates."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/life-in-a-day/|title=Review: Life in a Day|website=[[Slant Magazine]]|date=24 July 2011}}</ref> Contentions such as Schenker's were contradicted by ''[[The New York Times]]' '' Adam Sternbergh who wrote that "if the knock against the Internet... is that it stokes our collective [[narcissism]], this film, in its best moments, proves the opposite: not a global craving for exposure but a surprising universal willingness to allow ourselves to be exposed."<ref name="NYT20110722"/>
Though saying ''Life in a Day'' "isn't a bad movie" and there are "fits and spurts" in which the film is "actually quite beautiful," "funny" and "moving", Anthony Benigno from Filmcritic.com asserted that documentaries should have a point, narrative, conflict and goal, but called this film "scattershot" and "at its worst, veering closer into exploitation...and even voyeurism."<ref name="filmcritic20110728">Benigno, Anthony, [http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/2011/life-in-a-day/ "Review in Theaters, Life in a Day"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111116230139/http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/2011/life-in-a-day/ |date=16 November 2011 }} ([https://archive.
Two writers for ''[[The New York Times]]'' adopted opposing opinions. Mike Hale's review asserted that "much of the material is interesting in its own right... but... the problem is the resolutely conventional and soft-headed way in which that material has been assembled," and that "the overall tone remains gee-whiz."<ref name="NYT20110728">Hale, Mike, [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/movies/life-in-a-day-review.html "Movie Review: Life in a Day (2011): The World as YouTube Knows It"] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20210211025841/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/movies/life-in-a-day-review.html archive]), ''[[The New York Times]]'' Movie Review, 28 July 2011.</ref> In contrast, Adam Sternbergh concluded that "the montages of ordinary acts, repeated from Japan to Dubai to Las Vegas, take on a kind of profundity."<ref name="NYT20110722"/>
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== List of contributors ==
All authors of the videos are credited as co-directors.
{{columns-list|colwidth=12em|
* Phil Loarie
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* Christopher Santiago
* Julie Couturier
*
* Loressa Clisby
* Javed Kana
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* Jared Hosid
* Michael T. Balonek
* [[Andrea Dalla Costa]]
* Malgorzata Malak
* Sergej Kondakov, mga
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==Follow-on projects and legacy==
In October 2011, [[BBC News]] announced that ''[[Britain in a Day]]'' would be funded by [[BBC Learning]] as part of BBC's "Cultural Olympiad," with the ''[[Britain in a Day]]'' YouTube channel accepting video contributions from the public about their lives on a specific day: 12 November 2011.<ref name="BBC20111006">[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15199776 "London 2012 Britain in a Day project launched"] ([https://
In 2012 directors Philip Martin and Gaku Narita teamed up to create ''Japan in a Day'' which accounts of the aftermath from Japan's devastating tsunami in 2011 featuring YouTube videos shot by survivors living in and near the affected areas.
Macdonald and Scott also created ''Christmas in a Day'' (November 2013) a forty-eight-minute YouTube documentary on which a 3.5-minute advertisement for U.K. supermarket [[Sainsbury's]] was based.<ref name=Telegraph20131209/> The film constituted crowd-sourced clips recorded on Christmas 2012.<ref name=Telegraph20131209>Gray, Richard, [
''[[Italy in a Day]]'' (September 2014), directed by [[Gabriele Salvatores]], included clips selected from 45,000 crowd-sourced video submissions recorded on 26 October 2013, and premiered during the [[71st Venice International Film Festival]].<ref name=BusinessInsider20140903>Ide, Ella, [http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-italys-ills-hopes-laid-bare-in-new-crowdsourced-film-2014-9 "Italy's ills, hopes laid bare in new crowdsourced film"] ([https://
The production house behind ''Italy in a Day'' is teaming with Scott Free Productions to produce ''Israel in a Day'', with Germany and France also working on their own versions in the format.<ref name=BusinessInsider20140903/>
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''[[Canada in a Day]]'' was released in 2017.<ref name=debuts>[https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2017/06/13/ctvs-canada-in-a-day-debuts-june-25.html "CTV's Canada in a Day debuts June 25"]. ''[[Toronto Star]]'', June 13, 2017.</ref>
''UN in a Day,'' directed by Rubén Mendoza which count a day (August 24) to all the members of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in celebration of its 150th anniversary. That Movie was released in 2017.
''Panama in a Day'' was released in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://panamainaday.com/about.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190815112137/https://panamainaday.com/about.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 August 2019|title=Acerca de | Panama in a Day|date=15 August 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://elsiglo.com.pa/espectaculos/panama-retrato-pais-grandes-pequenas-historias/24145590|title='Panama in a Day', retrato de un país de grandes y pequeñas historias|website=El Siglo}}</ref>
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==External links==
* {{YouTube|user=lifeinaday|''Life in a Day''}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaFVr_cJJIY Full-length film] on YouTube ([https://
* {{IMDb title|1687247|Life in a Day}}
* {{allrovi movie|532844|Life in a Day}}
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[[Category:2010s Hindi-language films]]
[[Category:2011 YouTube videos]]
[[Category:American films]]▼
[[Category:American documentary films]]
[[Category:American drama films]]
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[[Category:2010s Arabic-language films]]
[[Category:2010s Bengali-language films]]
[[Category:2010s Catalan-language films]]
[[Category:Collaborative projects]]
[[Category:Crowdsourcing]]
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[[Category:Internet documentary films]]
[[Category:2010s Italian-language films]]
[[Category:2010s Japanese-language films]]
[[Category:July 2010 events]]
[[Category:2010s Portuguese-language films]]
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[[Category:2010s Spanish-language films]]
[[Category:Ukrainian-language films]]
[[Category:2010s Vietnamese-language films]]
▲[[Category:2010s American films]]
[[Category:Films released on YouTube]]
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