Heh. You parallel my thinking. I come at it from the needs of faked Apollo footage (as if that was all, or even the best, proof of Apollo!) and with an understanding of less traditional film-making.

The things to remember is that all of the Apollo material is consistent and congruent. There is not a clip of video here, some photographs there. There are EVAs, which have detailed journals, contiguous radio logs, near-contiguous video and DAC coverage. Almost every photograph taken can be SEEN to be taken in the video footage (and can be geometrically reconstructed to match up with the angle of the astronaut taking the picture) and the majority are even mentioned at the moment in the recorded and contiguous radio transmissions.

In addition, it is not a bunch of random props and some scientific-sounding words; there are specific EVA procedures that are described in big manuals, on equipment examples of which are in museums. And there are scientific procedures that have results -- readings and samples -- that are also time-logged, location logged, talked about on radio seen in video shown in simultaneous photographs.

And all of these materials and procedures and experiments make scientific sense. They behave to the best description science can give of the behavior of known engineering devices and practices in a known environment.

So, no; setting up one gang of photographers to stage random still pictures, while another group stages a couple of low-gravity simulated hops and skips, is NOT going to work. It won't pass even the most cursory examination of the Apollo materials.



Were I faced with trying to fake something like the Apollo visual record, this is how I would go about it:

Start with equipment designed by good engineers that would actually work. Train on the procedures that would actually be used (Kubrick would follow me this far, I'm sure!) Create a set that is as realistic as you can manage.

Now, using your scientific and engineering advisers, write and rehearse a detailed script. You want to account for every second of the EVA, with every action you intend to simulate.

Finally, after setting up lighting and background in such a way that every single shooting angle in the script is covered on the standing set, do the scene. ONCE. You film one long contiguous video shoot (or some very, very clever splices -- maybe you need to call up Hitchcock as well!) and every single still photograph taken is taken live, on that set, during that filming session. The only freedom you have is dubbing the radio record later, if needed.

Of course this rather requires a set 300 meters across, with an elaborate low-gravity rig, and some clever, clever way to control the dust. But anyhow...!


Actually, truth be told, were I tasked with faking it, I'd carefully explain how the Moon's natural radiation makes it difficult to take good pictures, and I wouldn't even bring up video in the first place. I'd shoot maybe a dozen stills, total. Why would anyone expect hours of video and hundreds of frames per EVA? Did we get that much from any other scientific exploration?