On Thursday, January 27 at 8 p.m., audiences across the globe will be watching a live broadcast on YouTube of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. This broadcast will feature YouTube’s very own film project entitled “Life in a Day,” which features over 80,000 individual clips from documentary filmmakers in 192 countries. The film is directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott.
The concept of the film is relatively simple: documenting the individual stories of people around the world on a single day. “Every day, 6.7 billion people view the world through their own unique lens,” read the call for footage on YouTube. “Imagine if there was a way to collect all of these perspectives, to aggregate and mold them into the cohesive story of a single day on earth.”
What began with over 4,500 hours of documentary submissions was eventually chiseled down to 100 hours of footage, all dedicated to events that occurred on a single day in the life of everyday individuals. 90 minutes of this documentary will feature a very special interview taken here in the Queen City at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
When Ben Richey, Director of Creative Services at RPCI, saw the ad for submissions on YouTube, he saw an opportunity to share a day in the life of a cancer patient with audiences around the world.
“The thought was, let’s make a film that’s a snapshot of what the world was like on July 24, 2010,” Richey said. “We loved the project and wanted to get involved from the get-go. So Bill and I came back to work that Friday at midnight. We talked to a couple who were at Roswell that day — the husband was here being treated for leukemia — and they said they’d love to be a part of the project and to have us document this experience for them.”
Richey and RPCI Staff Photographer Bill Sheff sat down with Jessica and Clayton “Fudd” Rutan to talk about Clayton’s battle with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which began in June of 2007. “I asked them a lot of hard questions — what his diagnosis has done to their family, what he’s most afraid of,” Richey says. “They told me, ‘This is our normal now.’ Everybody in the room cried.”
The Rutans agreed to contribute their personal story to the project, knowing that it would give them a means to document this part of their lives and later, share it with their children. “I wanted them to see us talking about the struggle,” said Jessica. “It wasn’t really for right now. Someday, hopefully, when this is all behind us, they’ll forget all the stuff we went through. So it was really for years down the road.”
Not only will the film preserve this experience for the Rutan family to reflect on years later, but it will also share their powerful story, along with those of so many others, with audiences worldwide. “We couldn’t be more excited to know that our footage will be part of Kevin’s film,” Richey said. “We were so happy just to learn that we’d made it to the final 100 hours of footage, so to have made the final cut is just incredible.”
To see the live broadcast from the Sundance Film Festival, tune in to the YouTube project site at 8 p.m. EST on January 27.
Sarah Maurer
I moved to Buffalo to attend Canisius College in 2007 and began writing for Buffalo Rising as a journalism intern in 2010. Working with Newell and meeting numerous entrepreneurs, activists and everyday folks who were working to make their city better made a huge impact on my decision to stay here. After witnessing all the positive development and grassroots initiatives happening in neighborhoods throughout the city, I was inspired to pursue a term of service in AmeriCorps and a career in Buffalo's non-profit sector. I currently work in the housing department at the Lt. Col. Matt Urban Human Services Center of WNY and am excited to be a part of their ongoing efforts to revitalize the Broadway Fillmore neighborhood. I also volunteer as the project coordinator for Artfarms Buffalo. I continue to write for Buffalo Rising because I love having the opportunity to stay connected to those working toward positive changes for the Queen City.