Digital Cinema- Mission to Earth

 Comparing to the traditional film, "Mission to Earth" is new and more abstract in terms of the structure, appearance, perspective and the story.

Mission to Earth is an example of soft cinema which nature is totally different from the traditional film that is created by the combination of human subjectivity and various choices of scenario, color, images and so forth made by custom software which can run infinitely without ever exactly repeating the same image sequences, screen layouts and narratives. Therefore, what is shown on the screen is not controlled by director or script writer but the software itself from its own database.

Traditionally, the whole screen is used to show one point perspective of the character. Sometimes it creates different point of perspective. But in any way, the screen would just show the one point perspective for most of the time. Interestingly, in Mission to Earth, the screen is divided into few different grids. They may not visually relate to each other. But they are like speaking for the other screen. In a moment that the screen shows a woman in the middle and the frames of steam and raindrops (see appendix 2). Obviously where the woman is is not raining. It can be explained that the steam and raindrops is telling the inner status of the woman. It creates the atmosphere of loneliness and obscurity. Another example is that the largest frame shows a woman sitting in a cabin (see appendix 3). The sub-screens are showing possibly another cabin with similar circle-shape windows. It is like showing two perspectives. One is from the eyes of the audience to the woman. The other is from the eyes of the woman to the cabin. It can differentiate soft cinema from traditional film by using the divided screen to give more information of the mood and angle to audience.

appendix 2

appendix 3

This form reminds me of Composition ll in Red, Blue and Yellow by Piet Mondrian.

The frames, grids and the scale are more or less similar to that appears in Mission to Earth. In the film, they are used as simultaneous screens. Also, colors used in the film are simple. The saturation is not diverse. Pastel color creates low key mood. Though the color used in Composition II is brighter. The whole painting is very clean and not complex at all.

Furthermore, this film also reminds me of films made by Maya Deren. The atmosphere in her films are always calm, cold, alienated, depressive and contemplative. The video attached was regarded as rebellion for feminism. The overall impression of the film is resembling to Mission to Earth.