Head of Special Collections Fiona Courage and director Kevin Macdonald in the Mass Observation Archive stores in the University of Sussex Library
A film to be made by Hollywood directors Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald was inspired by day diaries kept in the University of Sussex Mass Observation Archive. People around the world are being asked to upload personal films about their lives on YouTube tomorrow (Saturday 24 July) for the biggest ever user-generated film to be made. The films will then be edited into a single composition, to be premiered at the world-famous Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. The project, called Life In A Day, to be executive-produced by Bladerunner and Gladiator director Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald, was inspired by the day diaries and reports commissioned by Mass Observation during the inter-war years and World War Two, which now form part of the Archive, housed at the University of Sussex. During its initial period of operation the Mass Observation Project collected a vast archive of material including diaries, surveys, observations and ephemera which provides us with a unique insight into many aspects of everyday life over the last 70 years that would otherwise be lost. Kevin Macdonald (the film director, whose previous work includes The Last King of Scotland , Touching the Void and State of Play ) visited the Mass Observation Archive in the University of Sussex Libary in July to film a short piece to promote Life in A Day on YouTube, which is also involved in the project. In the film he says: "This place was the inspiration for me for Life in a Day".Mr Macdonald had visited the Archive ten years earlier while making a film about one of Mass Observation's founders, Humphrey Jennings, and was fascinated by what he saw there.
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