Freesound Forums

I was browsing Hulu looking for new documentaries to watch when I stumbled across "Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure" and I thought that it might appeal to the Freesound crowd. It's a bit of popular cultured that I totally missed, even though it took place in the city I live in, about room mates who move in next to two jobless drunks who argue so loudly it wakes them up. They 'retaliate' by recording the arguments over the course of several months. They share the recordings on tape, with friends and they go viral in a pre-internet way.

What was especially interesting to me was all the issues of ownership and copyright once the recordings became a little successful. Issues of privacy and ownership are addressed in a pretty interesting way. They also use a new term I'd very heard before: "Audio Verité". Googling it, I can't find many references outside of this documentary but it's an interesting concept.

It probably appeals to a limited audience, but if you have some time to kill and you're interested in a story about field-recording in pop-culture, or issues to do with ownership, copyright and privacy it's worth a watch. Has anyone else watched it? I'd love to know what you thought of it.

- Martin

Not watched it but sounds like something I should! Thanks!

I found the documentary to be strangely inspirational. Not sure why though. Could never find anything set in stone on the 'Audio Verité' term except for something called 'Cinéma vérité.'Which seems to be closely related according to Wikipedia - "Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, invented by Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda and influenced by Robert Flaherty’s films. It combines improvisation with the use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind crude reality".

So it would seem that they just replaced the word 'cinema' with 'audio'. (?) Don't know for sure.

In a way it did appear to be an invasion of privacy, but at the same time it seemed trivial. Almost (I emphasize the word "almost") like sitting in a coffee shop and observing people going about their day. It's strange how audio recordings can give such a visual insight on the lives of other people. Is it right or wrong? No idea.

Great thread though. Looking forward to seeing other people's opinions on the documentary.