Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2012

The job title “movie director” conjures up images of a person yelling “Action!” and “Cut!” on a busy film set. But that role is changing. Take Japan in a Day, which was directed by two filmmakers in London from footage shot by 8,000 people in Japan on March 11, 2012 and submitted via YouTube.

“As a director you are usually hired for your own point of view,” co-director Philip Martin told Metropolis. “This is a collaboration not only between us, but also with our audience. It’s a way of sharing the process of filmmaking.” The 300-plus hours of submitted footage was tagged with keywords by a team of Japanese bloggers and then viewed by Martin and co-director Gaku Narita. Narita explained that executive producer Ridley Scott had already developed a database system for dealing with an enormous amount of raw footage. “For him it is always about how to manage this information and make it work for us,” the Japan native said.

The filmmakers were pleased with the quality of the clips they received. “People’s technical ability is great and equipment these days a great,” Martin said, adding that technology has completely changed filmmaking. But it has also changed our approach to the world. “This kind of film is one in which you do not have a single point of view, but you can choose from points of view of a whole lot of different people.”

Japan in a Day is currently screening at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills.