Digital Cinema VS. Traditional Cinema

Discussion Questions:
1) Using "Mission to Earth" as an example, what is new or different about digital cinema compared to traditional film-making? Consider the story, structure and appearance of the film.

I can definitely see a plethora of differences between digital cinema and traditional "Hollywood" film-making, especially since film is part of my concentration. I would divide these differences into categories of editing, content, and aim. 

To begin with editing, there's an instant difference that the viewer is directed to. Instead of a traditional Hollywood film where there would be a fade in or dramatic musical prelude, the film goes right into multiple screens and into the content. And the multiple screens aren't just like a split screen shot in a traditional film, there are many shapes that are respectively coordinated with content to fill each. We typically don't see this in traditional cinema, unless it would be a multi-person phone call or an action sequence that happens quickly. 

These screens are part of the form for soft cinema, called algorithmic editing. This means that "each video clips used in Soft Cinema is assigned keywords which describe both the 'content' of a clip (geographical location, presence of people in the scene, etc.) and its 'formal' properties (dominant color, dominant line orientation, contrast, camera movement, etc.)" (Manovich). 

Also, the director uses discontinuity editing instead of traditional continuity editing. This means there's brief but recognizable cuts between the shots, and even a break of music. There's also an almost home-video aspect to it, looking like it's filmed by a handheld camera as it's shaky. It's an intentional editing technique that's emphasized, so that the viewer can recognize it as well, which leads us to the aim of the film-making, which I will explain later.

There's a monotone voice over throughout the entire film which typically doesn't happen in Hollywood movies, more so documentaries or informational programs. 

To move onto the content, this also differs from traditional film-making. In traditional film-making the viewer gets a typical story line with shots to match it. In "Mission to Earth," not all the time were there shots to match the voice over and story line going on, but rather random images. Also with the content, the story wasn't so clear and was left rather ambiguous at the end. The film relied on the voice over and the strange images and shots rather than traditional acting to convey and display the content and the themes of the film.

For "Mission to Earth," the content and tone of the film was rather unsettling, dreary and monotone, as the music and editing techniques (voice over, colors, shots) shaped it to be. 

And also as we talked about in class discussion, the voice over for the film is the same but there are always changes to the boxes with the circular patterns, making it a sort of database cinema, which is not what traditional does.

Lastly, for aim, we can clearly see there's a difference in the aim of the film-making. Traditional Hollywood cinema uses continuity editing and makes the movie seem like real life. With digital/soft cinema, there is an explicit draw towards the discontinuity. The film maker wants the audience to see the reality in the film making, which may correlate to the themes. In "Mission to Earth," though it may not be so realistic with a spaceship and whatnot, there's a realistic aspect of alienation and certain life struggles that the film is trying to convey. If the editing and the source itself is realistic and "rough" or "bumpy" like life actually can be, perhaps it can be portrayed better. Mainstream seems much less "made" than digital cinema. That's the constructed-ness aspect of digital cinema.

In any event, the story, structure and appearance of the film and of digital cinema is different from traditional film making through the editing, content and aim.


2) What other art forms (eg. early film, digital art, painting, websites, etc) does this film remind you of? Explain each similarity.

"Mission to Earth" actually reminds me of a music video that I studied in a film class. I can't remember name of the song, unfortunately. However, it reminds me of it because it contains many aspects that digital cinema and that "Mission to Earth" embraces. There was a mix of traditional film-making with some digital cinematic effects, like objects being placed into it. There was also a lot of graphic movement likewise the circles in the movie. They were also circles in the music video. It was also a more "hipster" like music video, so it wanted to emphasize the fact that it didn't need a big studio budget to make the film so seemed rather hand made and crafted, which said something about the band itself. Some of the shots and images added were rather random, likewise the ones in the film  we saw. 

Works Cited:

              Manovich, Lev. "Form." Soft Cinema: Ambient Narrative. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://softcinema.net/form.htm>.