In my opinion, sound is a very important concept of storytelling. It can provoke any emotion, establish a setting, create suspension, advance a story’s plot develop characters, etc. Throughout the audio of “Moon Graffiti,” there is a lot of background audio for us to get a visual of the story that is being told. When the spaceship crashed we heard a tense sound to create tension, to make us be on the edge of our seats to wonder if they survived or want to know what happened. The two Radio Lab YouTube videos discuss audio storytelling and how people can tell stories without needing pictures or written words. Jad Abumrad mentions his version of storytelling, he uses his “voice”, he mentions he’s not comfortable doing that, so he uses audio clips to create the illusion that he is using his “voice” being able to capture the audience by sound and giving them the paintbrush to imagine the story is something magical, similar to putting the individual in a dream state mind. Jad Abumrad mentions that fewer images can be better for the audience because it influences the imagination that comes from the lack of images and abundance of sounds. Without images or written words, you can allow your voice/sounds to express a story in order to make the audience create the images in their mind, creating a sense of intimate connection with the storyteller.
While listening to the Moon Graffiti, I started to acknowledge that what Jad Abumrad mentioned in the video was correct. Listening to this audio clip I felt like I was able to watch them in a movie and feel their emotions. With the different audio and sounds playing while the story was being told it felt like I was in a dream state of mind, it felt like an eerie situation I was in. When they both went out of the ship to take pictures, I vividly could imagine them using their camera and seeing the flash every time I heard the click of the shutter going off. In addition, at the end of the audio with them reporting that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were not coming back to earth, it felt real, with radio static and the voice of the reporter, it created an unsettling mood and atmosphere, with the eerie audio playing behind his voice.
