Ridley Scott, Kevin Macdonald, and YouTube Join Forces for LIFE IN A DAY, “The First User-Generated Documentary”

If you’re not busy on July 24th, you may want to get your camera and your YouTube account ready for an ambitious filmmaking project.  THR reports that producer Ridley Scott, director Kevin Macdonald (State of Play), and YouTube are teaming up for Life in a Day, “the first user-generated feature-length documentary.”  The idea is that footage shot on July 24th and submitted to YouTube for the project will be compiled a feature documentary that will debut at next year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Hit the jump for more details on this fascinating project.

Macdonald will direct the film by selecting what he deems the best footage for the final film.  The creators of that footage will be credited as co-directors and twenty of them will join Macdonald and Scott when the film premieres at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.  And if you’re worried that this project favors citizens of industrialized nations with easy access to filmmaking technology, don’t worry:

Scott Free (Ridley Scott’s production company) will work with Rick Smolan, creator of “A Day in the Life” and CEO of Against All Odds Prods. — a California-based organization that specializes in the execution of large-scale global projects — to distribute cameras to individuals in remote regions of the world in an effort to ensure that the film is as inclusive and representative as possible.

Said Macdonald of the documentary:

‘Life in a Day’ is a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010. 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.

And we all pray it will work out better than Chat Roulette.

But in all seriousness, I wonder if this will be an honest “time capsule” or something that just shows the world as happy, smiling place full of sunshine and rainbows.  Will people in the gulf shoot the oil spill?  Will we see footage of the war-torn places of the globe?  Will Macdonald show us poverty, crime, and aspects of our world that may not be pretty, but are part of the human condition nonetheless?  I hope so.  Then again, LG Electronics is also participating in the documentary as part of the company’s “Life’s Good” campaign, so I have my doubts.

Click over to www.youtube.com/lifeinaday for more details.