Lev Manovich [Mission to Earth]

Mission to Earth is reflecting an "immigrant"'s experience on the Earth. It is just a different way in telling story comparing with the traditional ways as it is a new digital cinema. It includes some new and different elements and relies on the use of database. Different from the traditional one, the digital media divides the screen into different parts with different purpose instead of using whole screen for telling a whole complete story. Bu using low saturation colours, it creates a low key mood for the audience. Besides, the feature of this cinema is there is no dialogue from the characters. It is telling a story by these voice-over and visual elements instead of narrating from characters traditionally. The audience need to construct meaning through multi-screens.

Moreover, there are many combinations of the video clips as the video clips will be played by the software randomly. It can deliver much more possible ideas to the audience in different time and provide a room for the audience to imagine. When the audience watches again, he will have a new experience.
"While the narrative stays the same and repeats every 23 minutes, all other elements can potentially change." [1]

As the digital cinema is different from the traditional cinema, the input of pro-production technique is much more important than the performance of the characters. With the use of database and software, the traditional ways of constructing a film seems to be replaced. It is such a unexpected experience of watching a movie for me. It just totally change my concept of watching a movie.

I think the concept of soft cinema will remind me the montage-style. This style is using many different photos together and reforms a new image. It is similar to soft cinema which is using different video clips to reform a new ending or deliver a new image. Furthermore, a photo is divided into several grids, like the interface of the soft cinema.

Piet Mondrian, Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930

Besides, the appearance of this cinema also reminds me Piet Mondrian's work, with almost the some layout.

My opinion on this movie
The new medium makes the production of movie much more easier. Apart from traditional movie making, we can just use some basic technique to produce a movie as the software is very user friendly. We only need to know how to use the software and deal with the visual elements instead of putting huge of human resources. I think it makes the market-oriented movie to user-oriented. It provides a larger room for the director in producing a movie as the influence of market becomes lower. Added to it, the file size of soft cinema is much lower than the file size of traditional one. It is more convenient for people upload and download from the internet in order to enhance the information exchange.

[1] "Mission to Earth / Soft Cinema 2," Database of Virtual Art, http://www.virtualart.at/database/general/work/mission-to-earth-soft-cinema-2.html (accessed Nov. 7, 2012).