In Moon Graffiti, written and produced by Jonathan Mitchell, is a fictional retelling of the moon landing where Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong crashed and became stranded. Matt Evans and Ed Herbstman played the two astronats. The story is inspired by the speech written for Nixon by William Saffire in the event that Aldrin and Armstrong didn’t survive the journey. After crashing on the moon, they realize they are stranded and spend their last two hours unable to do anything about their impending deaths. They try to place the flag, discuss the future of space travel, and kill time before their oxygen runs out.
Audio is used very well in this. From the cracking of their radio systems to scientific equipment beeping to sand flying through the air after a kick, every one of the many layers of audio creates a rich atmosphere. I tried to listen to the background as much as possible. They used long humming, static, and beeping at tense moments and kept the background clear during the calmer moments. The techniques were very simple, but effective. I started listening without looking at the description, so I had no clue what was about to happen. In the first ten seconds, I was able to understand that these men were in some sort of space-related emergency.
I enjoyed this more than I expected to. I haven’t listened to many things like this, but found it very compelling. I had a clear image of everything going on without description. They did a great job on this and I may have to listen to more.
Below is a link to the story. Some sections I found particularly interesting are at 2:48, 8:08, and 11:35. These are places where I found the sound editing particularly impactful and detailed. Specifically the footsteps at 2:48, the flag sounds at 8:08, and the breathing and background noise at 11:35.
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