LONDON (AP) — Filmmaker Danny Boyle is urging thousands of people to gather on British beaches and make silhouettes in the sand on Nov. 11 to mark 100 years since the end of World War I.

Artists will also create giant portraits of people killed in the war, which will be washed away by the incoming tide.

The commemoration caps four years of cultural activities marking the centenary of the 1914-18 conflict, in which 20 million people died.

Boyle said Friday that as "truly public spaces," beaches "seem the perfect place to gather and say a final goodbye and thank you to those whose lives were taken or forever changed by the First World War."

The "Slumdog Millionaire" director stepped down earlier this year from the helm of the next James Bond film.