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Earth Day is this Sunday, and audiences in more than 160 countries across the globe will gather to screen director Kyle Ruddick's new documentary, "One Day on Earth," which was shot in every country of the world on the same day.
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It is considered one of the most audacious documentary film projects ever shot. Think "Koyaanisqatsi" on an even grander scale -- and with loftier goals -- and you'll begin to understand what "One Day on Earth" is all about. The 104-minute film will make its debut on Sunday on screens around the world, including at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. It is a visual poem starring everyone on Earth. It's about you and me, the times we live in, and our place in the puzzle of humanity.
Ruddick and executive producer Brandon Litman are the two young forces behind "One Day on Earth." Filmed entirely on Oct. 10, 2010, "One Day on Earth" involved 3,000 hours of footage in 70 languages from 19,000 volunteer filmmakers around the world. The grassroots filmmakers painstakingly captured the beauty and tragedy of the human experience, ranging from scenes of women giving birth to a high-profile North Korean military parade to extreme poverty in India.
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The two men met 10 years ago at the University of Southern California, where Ruddick studied film and Litman majored in business. Although both had worked on short-length commercial and broadcast projects, they had never attempted anything like "One Day on Earth" -- their first feature-length film -- and neither had any other documentarian.
"It shifted gears in our lives," said Ruddick, 33, a ponytailed surfer from Los Angeles who started the "One Day on Earth" project in 2008. Litman, 30, who is a New York-born social entrepreneur, joined the team about a year later after a trip back to Los Angeles.
"A producer friend of mine told me 'If you had known better, you wouldn't have done this,'" recalled Ruddick.
"It was a steep learning curve," added Litman. "It's a massive project, and people thought it was impossible. The cool thing about it was we got to redefine some expectations and borders of what is possible."
The two worked on the project from their basement office in Santa Monica, Calif. They came up with the idea for the film in 2008 at a world music festival. The musicians' "initial attempts to create music together were awkward, and it was clear that they had never collaborated prior to this moment," Ruddick said on the documentary's website. "Eventually, though, over the period of a couple [of] minutes, what was disharmony became harmony, and a beautiful fusion of music came together for the first time."
'Cycle Of Life Mixed With Carpe Diem'
One thread the filmmakers explored is the relationship between the empirical data and statistics. However, crafting the final project required listening to and reflecting upon the crowd-sourced material.
"The editorial process was a process of discovery," said Ruddick. "You couldn't make this sort of film without being completely open to what you receive."
Common themes arose organically, and the filmmakers structured the documentary around vignettes that underscore larger global issues. A sense of communal experience further grounded the wide-ranging film.
"The world is a vast spectacle that we indulge and love and also struggle through," said Ruddick. "We're born, we're young, we dance, we sing, and despite all of that we have incredible challenges. We grow old, we die, but we have an opportunity to live our days to the fullest."
Ruddick described "One Day on Earth" as a "cycle of life mixed with carpe diem."
