Wednesday 12 December 2012

Glad Notes: Christmas in a Day

Brits: If you unwrap a new camera or phone from under the tree this Christmas Day, be sure to catch some footage of your day. You could end up in a movie, and win £200 of Sainsbury's vouchers in the process.

Back in July 2010 two Oscar-winning movie directors asked thousands of people, from all over the world, to film a day in their lives. People who got up, ate breakfast, checked their phones, rode in their cars; people who took to the streets begging or cleaning shoes; people who were old, young, healthy and sick, filmed the significant and insignificant moments of their day and uploaded them to YouTube.

The movie directors, Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner), stitched the footage together into the feature length movie Life in a Day. It was a surprisingly beautiful and touching celebration of the mundane.

If you haven't seen it, you can watch it for free on YouTube. I recommend that you do, because it's something quite special. And I don't just think that because I'm a film graduate, or because I'm sucker for innovative movies and user-generated content!

So when Kevin Macdonald partnered with the BBC to put out a call for Brits to film their lives on a November Saturday last year, I decided to join in. I recorded a normal conversation with my husband and appeared in the movie Britain in a Day, which was broadcast earlier this year on BBC.

Now Macdonald wants to document a British Christmas for Christmas in a Day, which will be released in 2013. On the website, Macdonald says "We want to document not just the big day itself but the process leading up to it - getting the tree, travelling to relatives, picking presents etc."

It was just over a year ago that I made that recording for Britain in a Day. Mark and I were halfway through the US visa process and over Skype we discussed our fears and hopes for when we would begin our married lives together. It's strange to think that it was just a year ago - now I have an entirely different life, with new concerns and wishes.

2012 has been a big year for Britain, and it's been a big year for me. But it was fun to be a part of the BBC project, and I hope you have fun making movies and memories for Christmas in a Day. You could end up being part of something really special.

4 comments:

  1. I remember seeing posters on the tube for Life in a Day but didn't know what it was! I'll definitely check it out - thank you.

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  2. Well I know what I'm playing in the background for work today :). That's so sweet that you and your husband were a part of the film. What a neat memory, though it's of a rather trying time!

    --Erin

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