Frequently Asked Questions
General FAQs
A Day in the Life… is a documentary film project about everyday vegans. The documentary will be a collection of crowdsourced videos of vegans going about their daily lives to showcase that vegans come from all walks of life and are no different than the rest of the world except for their relationship to non-human animals.
A Day in the Life… is the brainchild of filmmaker, Kamal S. Prasad, who serves as the writer and director on this project. Some other people involved with the making of this documentary are Zehra Abbas (Producer), Jian Yi (Producer) and Sheryl Leighton (Associate Producer).
There is no way to ensure that videos submissions will be from 100% vegans. However, our guess is that non-vegans are unlikely to go through the trouble of making fake videos on the off chance that we might choose to use their footage. The video will be edited by long term vegans who will do their best to spot inconsistencies in footage that might give away someone trying to troll the project.
In addition, when submitting the videos, participants will have to fill out a questionnaire in which we’ll ask them to provide their social media pages (which will be kept private) so our staff can evaluate whether their public profiles align with their claims of veganism. If someone goes through the effort of making a compelling video about being vegan but aren’t 100% vegan themselves, we think it speaks to their aspirations of living a more compassionate, healthy and socially equitable life. We believe in nurturing those aspirations and not creating unrealistic barriers that keep people from continuing to move toward living as cruelty-free as possible.
If you’d like to help with the film project aside from (or in addition to) submitting video(s), we are looking for volunteers to help us out with (WordPress) web design, social media, graphics, marketing, and promotion. If you have ideas or skills that could contribute to the success of the documentary, we’d love to hear from you. You will, of course, receive credit on the website and in the film.
Of course, please share our project with anyone who might be interested in participating or supporting us in other ways.
The seed money for this project was provided by the film’s writer/director, Kamal S. Prasad. We have so far been moving forward with volunteers, who have generously donated their time and expertise. We will, though, require outside funding to cover extraordinary expenses, including graphic design services, legal fees, translators, music, cloud storage, better/faster hosting for the website, marketing and promotion. Therefore, donations of any size will be much appreciated. If you’d like to contribute to this project, please contact us. Our current plan is to make all donor names and amounts publicly available on our website. If you will need your contribution to remain confidential, please so state in your email. Thank you for your interest in supporting our project!
Plumbers, accountants, actors, landscapers, teachers, students, para-athletes, youtubers, software developers, trash collectors, basically if you are vegan, we want you to participate. If you are a full time vegan/animal rights activist, we would prefer to get videos of your day off, things you do to unwind and relax.
FAQs For Participants
We are looking for videos of what your typical day is like. Pick one day that you will record yourself (or a willing friend) and document what that day. Record the morning routines, typical breakfast, preparing breakfast, getting ready for work, working, typical lunch, afternoon activities, relaxation time, time spent with friends and family, typical dinner, preparing dinner, evening routine. If there are interesting/unique things you do regularly, pick that day or include those activities in the day that you do record. There’s no maximum amount of footage you can submit. Try to get all the recording done in one day if possible. You are welcome to record multiple days, e.g., morning routine one day and then evening routine another day, but please keep in mind that they should be what your typical day is like. Do not include things that you are not doing at least monthly.
No, there is no compensation for participating in the making of this documentary.
No, you are, in effect, granting us a license to use any materials you share with us. You (the creator) retain full copyright of the materials you choose to share with us.
Not at all. Anyone can contribute. All you need is a camera (phone camera will do) and the desire to tell your story. We do recommend checking out our resources on recording good video, especially audio to get good quality footage.
If your footage is selected, you will get co-director credit and have your contribution potentially be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Even if we decide not to use any of your footage, you will be listed in the Special Thanks section of the credits of the final film.
There is no minimum. Please note, that we are looking for footage that spans a whole day from which we will pick snippets from the morning, midday, afternoon and evening clips. You don’t have to supply footage from each of those time periods but for storytelling purposes it will be good for us (i.e. the final documentary) to revisit participants at different times in the day.
If you are a vegan business owner, we’d love for you to talk about your business and the role veganism plays in that, but please refrain from making an advertisement.
This whole film is meant as a promotion for veganism, to show the rest of the world that vegans can live healthy, happy, varied lives without exploiting animals. As such, there’s no need to encourage the audience to go vegan or to choose plant-based products over animal-based ones. Just focus on yourself and your veganism, and the plant-based foods you eat vs the animal-based foods you used to eat.
Not at all. You can just shoot and submit. Our editors will do the rest. If you are interested and willing, you are welcome to “cut” your footage before submitting it to us. However, please understand that we might make further edits to your video to fit the flow of our documentary. If you do decide to edit, please limit the edits to cuts only (no transitions from one clip to another, no titles, or overlays), and audio cleanup only (do not add music or other soundtrack over the footage).
Yes! If you are able to help other vegans record a day in their lives for this film project, you are welcome to submit multiple videos. You will be required to submit a form attesting that you have their permission to submit their videos, along with signed release form for us to use their footage as we see fit in the making of this documentary, and for marketing and promotion purposes. Please submit “each day” as a separate entry.
Currently the deadline to submit videos is March 29, 2022. We may stop collecting videos sooner but not without informing people who have filled out the pre-submission form in advance that we are ending our call for entries. The sooner you submit your video, the better chances are that we’ll use your footage, and it will also help us out greatly; so, thank you for submitting your footage early. 
Of course! You could contrast how you spend your typical day vs a special occasion. In your footage, for example, you could say something like, “Normally breakfast would consist of… but it’s New Year’s Day so we are having…” That’s just an example. Do what feels comfortable and doable. You could also include an upcoming event as part of your typical day video, for example, include your typical afternoon but add something like, “such and such event is coming up so I’m thinking about doing… instead of this.”
Have a question or comment? Send us a message.
Alternatively, you can join our Google Group to get answers to your questions and get help if you are interested in participating in this documentary project.