First Scottish user-generated documentary project open for submissions

Following in the footsteps of Kevin Macdonald’s acclaimed Life in a Day, Scotland last month, launched its first ever mass participation film project. For the next three months people from across the country will be called upon to pick up their cameras or mobile phones and share videos about their lives, hopes and dreams.

The new venture, called Northern Lights, is open to everyone from all walks of life, backgrounds, ages and life experiences. It asks Scots to send in self-made videos of what they see as the true Scottish life in order to create an “epic self-portrait of Scotland”.

Scottish Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop, Iain Munro from Creative Scotland, and award-winning Scottish filmmaker Nick Higgins, the man behind the project, launched the project last month as part of  the Year of Creative Scotland 2012, which aims to showcase the very best of Scottish creativity, from art, textiles and architecture to music, film, drama and dance.

“The idea of inviting people from across Scotland to pick up a camera, film their Scotland and share their lives is hugely exciting to me and we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get involved,” Higgins said. “Our aim is to create a truly original representation of Scotland, taking in everything from the extraordinary to the everyday.”

Submissions, which can be anything from a brief video fragment to an unedited stream of consciousness, can be made online until 21 June. 

Throughout the project, to encourage and support submissions, Northern Lights will make £10,000 of awards to the participants they feel have made the most compelling contributions to the project. Special Northern Lights workshops will also be happening throughout the country, as well as online video tutorials and feedback, setting the project apart from its predecessors.

The best submissions will be gathered together and edited into a unique feature length documentary which will be touring Scotland in the winter of 2012. Who will edit the project is still unknown.