Friday 4 November 2011

Britain in a Day

from Caroline Ward - Assistant Producer, Britain in a Day

Britain in a Day is an exciting film-making project, which gives our audience a starring role on both sides of the camera. In partnership with Scott Free London, and directed by Morgan Matthews, the BBC is asking the people of the UK to make films about their lives on one day in 2011: Saturday November 12th.

We’re not looking for the next hi-tech blockbuster: we want intimate, personal films which provide a real insight into their lives and the life of the UK. And they don’t need to be master film-makers: they can use a camcorder or even a phone. It’s about passion, not technique. We want thousands of films uploaded to YouTube, to create a unique portrait of modern day Britain. When that treasure trove of personal films is up there on line, we’ll take the best of them and turn them into one of the big television moments of 2012 – to help us celebrate Olympic Year. 

We want people from all kinds of backgrounds to make Britain in a Day a success:  students; film-making societies; community groups and complete novices. Everyone is welcome.

The idea is based on 'Life in a Day’, the global, user-generated cinema film produced by Ridley Scott’s company Scott Free. 80,000 people from around the world submitted short clips of their day to YouTube, wherever they were and whatever they were doing.
Similarly 'Britain in a Day' aims to capture an authentic & broad-reaching snap-shot of modern Britain.

In the run-up to the mass-film-making day (Nov 12th), BBC Learning aims to inspire the nation to take part in this project: to make their own films and to upload them.  
We’ll be doing this in two ways:
  • In partnership with Rosa Productions, we’ll be showing hundreds of people from community groups across the UK how to make films about their day.
  • We’ll also be launching a web site which will host three new ‘how-to’ films fronted by a Dan Snow and Julia Bradbury -- and we’ll be providing simple written guides to accompany the films. From 28th October these will all be available on bbc.co.uk/britaininaday
  • We hope the campaign will be shared by social media using #britaininaday on your Facebook pages, Flickr and Twitter
Britain in a Day will be launched to the public on October 28th, across the BBC’s programming -- on outlets including The One Show, BBC News in the Nations and English Regions and on network radio. For the three weeks afterwards, we’ll be aiming to keep the project in the public eye, with a view to getting thousands of films uploaded.    

What you need to know –
  • People making films do not need to have made a film before.
  • There are no requirements as to what cameras are used – but, we’re keen for the films to be of as good a quality as possible.
  • A YouTube site will become available to upload the films.
  • Some films (or clips from them) will be broadcast on BBC2 next year
  • 14-18s can submit films to the YouTube BIAD channel, but they will have to secure parental consent before they can be used
You can download the BBC poster and read the Press Release.