Pity the poor cinematographers. If YouTube’s new partnership with filmmakers Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald catches on, they could be out of work.
Scott and Macdonald are calling on the popular video site's legions of fans to help them create a new feature-length documentary film called “Life in a Day.” The project will be shot on a single day – July 24, 2010 — with the two filmmakers turning the camerawork over to YouTube users.
These would-be documentarians are being asked to capture a moment of their lives on that date and to upload that footage to YouTube.
“It is a unique experiment in social filmmaking, and what better way to gather a limitless array of footage than to engage the world’s online community,” Macdonald said in a statement.
Macdonald (“State of Play,” “Last King of Scotland”) will then cobble together the crowd-sourced footage into a documentary, which Scott (“Robin Hood,” “Gladiator”) will produce through his company Scott Free Productions.
Those folks whose footage makes the cut will be credited as co-directors. Twenty of these contributors will be flown to the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where the film will have its world premiere. No word yet on how YouTube willl decide which co-directors get a plane ticket to Park City, Utah.
Big-ticket filmmakers such as Scott and Macdonald demand attention, but it must be said that YouTube’s previous partnership with Sundance debuted to a lukewarm response. Last winter’s move to make five films — “The Cove,” “Bass Ackwards,” “One Too Many Mornings,” “Homewrecker” and “Children of Invention” — available for rental during the festival failed to generate any enthusiasm. The movies attracted 2,684 views and brought in $10,709.