Life in a Day

Watched Life in a Day with Pip last night. If you aren’t familiar with it, the film is the result of a crowdsourcing project where participants submitted their video via YouTube (80,000 clips in all, totally 4,500 hours) which were then selected from and edited down to 90ish minutes, summarizing a single day in the life of various people, places and events on  July 24, 2010.  Produced and distributed by Scott Free Productions and National Geographic.

The flow is essentially chronological from the early morning to the end of a day, following some similar events across the lives of various people (cultures and individuals). Some figures appear repeatedly and serve as guide posts creating a narrative, while others appear only briefly.

I particularly liked the South Korean cyclist Okhwan Yoon, who has spent nearly a decade that is one part nomadic quest to circle the earth and one part reflecting on the fractured nature of his homeland.  But the young boy in Peru earning his living shining shoes on the streets will steal your heart. When he emerges from his family’s modest home to proudly show off his OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), I MAY have succumbed to some dust getting in my eyes.

Amazon.com: Life in a Day