Two years ago we wrote about a project in its initial stages: Global Lives set out to record a day in the life of 10 people from all over the world. Today we revisit the project and check up on how they're coming along.
Back in February the Global Lives Project had the opening night in San Francisco for their video installation where the 24 hour long videos for each of the 10 participants were projected simultaneously while people could choose to walk from room to room or to view all the screens at once. Following is the video of the opening night:
On their site you can view short segments from the days of each one of the subjects as well as a biographical page. Take for example Dadah, a farm worker and mother from Sarimukti Village in Indonesia: On her bio page you can learn about her life, her family, the bios of the film crew, and then watch a short video with subtitles in many different languages showing us an excerpt of her daily life.
You can also learn about Zhanna Dosmailova in Vannovka, Kazakhstan. This 5 year old lives with her family in the orphanage they run. In addition to the bio and short film, there is also a slideshow with pictures taken during the family interview and during the day of filming.
There are 8 other biographies with videos on the site, reflecting the lives of 10 people from different places in the world, and varied walks of life: joining Zhanna and Dadah are Israel Feliciano from Brazil, Dusan Lazic from Serbia, James Bullock from the US, Muttu Kumar from India, Kai Liu from China, Rumi Nagashima from Japan, Edith Kaphuka from Malawi and Jamila Jad from Lebanon. You can click on their faces on the Global Lives map, or go through to video and see their biographical shorts.
What has been the process of filming these lives? A video made by the Brazilian Global Lives crew takes us through the process, explaining the importance of all the details someone new to video may overlook such as finding a local guide, sketching out the daily events, planning for lighting during the nights or indoors and release forms for everyone appearing on the videos.
You can follow the Global Lives project on twitter as @globallives, subscribe to their YouTube channel or join them on Facebook. However if you are lucky enough to be in London on the 22nd of this month, you might consider seeing the project in person, as they will be screening the videos and telling all about the Global Lives Project.