Recently I watched a crowd-sourced documentary film titled “Life in a Day” produced by Scott Free Films and the YouTube video sharing site. This film captured life around the world on a single day – that day being July 24, 2010.
This documentary was the first of its kind because the raw footage was shot by average people across the world and uploaded to the YouTube video sharing site. In all there were over 4,500 hours of footage submitted in 80,000 clips from 192 countries.
Director Kevin 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.”
I would say his mission was a success. The video captures the essence of humanity in a single day. It broadened my perspective – you know, that perspective that we are really bigger and more important than we actually are.
As the film comes to its final “hours” of the day – it appropriately reflects on fears that we as humans collectively share.. The fear of being lonely.. The fear of losing what we hold onto the most.. The fear of sickness and death.. The fear of this short life coming to its closing hour.. The fear that we will not have made a difference in the world, that our existence – as brief as it is – will not be remembered.. The fear that our lives will have been lived in vain.. The fear that there is no God and that when this life is over, nothing will remain..
Director Kevin Macdonald said that the film focused on a single day “because a day is the basic temporal building block of human life—wherever you are.”
We live by the clock and the calendar. It’s a mathematical mechanism – this brief time here on this rock called Earth. With each passing hour and each passing day, our time reserve lessens but our experience and memory tank fills. What does it all count for? What does it all end up as? What will we feel in our closing hours?
I pray that you and I would spend each day, each building block, for a greater purpose.. Not that everyday is special because of something out of the ordinary – but that we would find something special in the everyday ordinary..
If you want to watch it, click here.. http://youtu.be/JaFVr_cJJIY
