The Prompt

THIS week sees the cinema release of Life In A Day, directorKevin Macdonald's bold attempt to capture life on Earth on a singleday by stitching together footage shot by over 80,000 people fromall across the world on 24 July last year.Next week, coincidentally,sees the premiere of the National Theatre of Scotland's Five MinuteTheatre project, a 24-hour online screening of five-minute theatrepieces submitted by, again, people from all over the world, andfilmed by NTS. The screening - part of the NTS's fifth birthdaycelebrations - starts at 5pm on 21 June and ends at 5pm the nextday.Both are ideas very much of their time, as professional artistsand arts organisations wonder how to respond to the huge wave ofhomemade creativity the internet unleashes daily. These kinds ofprojects succeed or fail, ultimately, on how they treat theirparticipants. Potentially they're generous and inclusive. Or theircreators can end up exploiting the creativity of others for theirown glory.While many have applauded the ambition of Life In A Day,some critics have dismissed it as a glossy advert for YouTube, whichfinanced it. "A dollop of visual blancmange," said one, who thoughtthe absence of those everyday staples, sex, death and violence,meant the film lacked "tension and vitality". If Macdonald hadincluded sex and violence, though, he'd probably have been accusedof exploitation. In the end, any attempt to construct somethingwatchable from so much raw footage is problematic. Someone,somewhere, is not going to like it, simply because the film doesn'tconnect with their view of what "life in a day" entails.The NTS mayface similar criticisms. Its project website is adamant that "youare in charge", which is true in the sense that you submit a five-minute performance and it's shown online at its full length. But noteveryone who submitted ideas made it through, so actually the NTS isin charge, choosing who to work with, how to film and what order toshow it all in.As with Life In A Day, the project raises fascinatingquestions about authorship. Macdonald is credited as "director" ofhis film, a curiously auteurish statement given that his job was toedit other people's work. The NTS's website, by contrast, doesn'tcredit anyone as director, as if they are simply channelling us, thepublic, with minimal creative input. Which decision, I wonder, ismore honest?