r Technical informa unning time: 85 mins | SYNOPSIS LONGER SYNOPSIS When two friends he most important audio recording released tape-recorded the in the nineties wasn’t a collection of songs fights of their by a self-tortured alternative star. The most violently noisy important recording released in the grunge neighbours, era was entitled SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! It was T ion they accidentally a covert audio recording of two older drunken f created one of the men living in a small flat in San Francisco, ormat: world’s first ‘viral’ who spent their available free time yelling, pop-culture screaming, hitting and generally abusing sensations. each other. h D Exploring the blurred | boundaries between he phenomenon began in 1987 when Eddie r privacy, art and Mitch (two young punks from the Mid atio: 1.78 and exploitation, West), moved next door to Peter Haskett Shut Up Little Man! (a flamboyant gay man), and Raymond Huffman An Audio (a raging homophobe). This ultimate odd- Misadventure couple hated each other with raging abandon, | is a darkly hilarious and through the paper-thin walls their Sound: Dolby Digital Stereo FILMLAB presents modern fable. alcohol-fuelled rants terrorised Eddie and a CLOSER production Mitch. Fearing for their lives they began to in association with the SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FILM CORPORATION tape record evidence of the insane goings and ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL on from next door. AUSTRALIA/NZ SALES TECHNICAL n recording Pete and Ray’s unique NICK BATZIAS [email protected] INFORmatION dialogue, the boys accidentally created one of the world’s first ‘viral’pop-culture US SALES Running time: 90 mins sensations. Their tapes went on to inspire Josh Braun [email protected] Format: HD a cult following, spawning sell-out CD’s, OrlY Ravid [email protected] +1 323 610 8128 Ratio: 1.78 comic artworks by Dan Clowes (Ghostworld), David Koh [email protected] +1 646 929 3468 | Sound: Dolby Digital stage-plays, music from the likes of Devo Stereo and a Hollywood feeding frenzy. For the newly l KEY CAST & CREW anguage: Featuring EDDIE LEE SAUSAGE, MITCHELL D, RAYMOND HUFFMAN, Language: ENGLISH famous Eddie and Mitchell, this would be a PETER HASKETT, TONY NEWTON, DANIEL CLOWES, IVAN BRUNETTI, life-changing experience that would see them HENRY S. ROSENTHAL, MIKE MITCHELL, GREGG GIBBS, & MARK GUNDERSON ingested into the belly and fired out the orifice of the pop culture beast. Writer and Director MATTHEW BATE en Producers SOPHIE HYDE & MATTHEW BATE xploring the blurring boundaries between G LI Co-producers JULIE BYRNE & BRYAN MASON privacy, art and exploitation, Shut Up S Executive Producers STEPHEN CLEARY & JULIE RYAN Little Man! An Audio Misadventure is a darkly h Cinematographer BRYAN MASON hilarious story. Editor BRYAN MASON Motion Graphics RAYNOR PETTGE Composer JONNY ELK WALSH Production Designer TONY CRONIN Dialogue Editor/Re-recording Mixer PETE BEST a CLOSER production www.closerproductions.com.au © Closer Productions Pty Ltd, South Australian Film Corporation and Adelaide Film Festival INTERVIEW WITH He often asks “what’s different about Also attractive to the Shut Up, that?” and it’s this that marks his SOPHIE HYDE Little Man! phenomenon for me, were own vision, a desire for originality a number of incredible artists who – of voice, opinion and style. INTERVIEW WITH were equally obsessed by the tapes MATTHEW BATE PRODUCER and took inspiration from them to EDITOR: So, how did you come to get – create art. DEVO (a favorite band involved in SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! as of mine) had sampled the tapes. Dan Producer? WRITER / DIRECTOR Clowes (Ghostworld) and Ivan Brunetti EDITOR: Have you worked with Matt (Misery Loves Comedy), two of the Bate (writer/ director) before? When the Lab finished, we decided great comic artists were huge fans I have known Matt [writer/director to change our business structure and all work together, so the new Closer EDITOR: Matt, how did you first come and had illustrated Pete and Ray. of SULM] for a long time, but we only Productions was formed (Bryan Mason across the SULM recordings? Director Mike Mitchell (Shrek 4) made started working together during the hilarious Peter and Raymond puppet and Sophie Hyde joined with Matthew I collect records and used to hang making of the film. In 2009, we were films. What did they see in this Bate as co-directors of the company). around a friend’s store. An older guy both in a workshop called FilmLab [ED: recording? Why did it attract such Eventually, within the company, we called Ron, who was the store’s self- www.safilmlab.com.au], a low budget people to it and inspire them took on the producing of SULM. appointed sage of all music trivia, feature film initiative by the South to create art? used to corner me and talk my ear off Australian Film Corporation designed about obscure music history. One day to develop and fund feature films EDITOR: Tell me a bit more about how he grabbed my record bag and wrote EDITOR: What did you want the film say? by first time feature directors with that all worked. SHUT UP LITTLE MAN on the cover The SULM story shows us how real lives strong creative teams. We were part Closer is a unique company in that and told me to go home and listen to can be turned into art, mythologized of the first intake of four teams, the three co-directors are not focused these bizarre recordings of two old and sold as entertainment. These Matt working on SULM [ED: with then exclusively on Producing. In fact, guys fighting. This was the genesis themes seem more prescient today Producer, now Executive Producer Julie it’s our secondary or third of fourth of my obsession with telling the given the nature of digital culture. Ryan] and me working as a producer/ pursuit. We all direct films, Bryan Shut Up Little Man! (SULM) story. People can be filmed and uploaded to director on a feature drama project shoots and edits, Matt and I both write, Youtube and become famous overnight. 52 Tuesdays with Bryan [ED: Producer, but Bryan and I have always produced In this light SULM could be seen as Cinematographer, Editor] and writer, our own work alongside other producers EDITOR: What first attracted you to Matthew Cormack. the recordings? a precursor to modern viral phenomena. and so taking on SULM felt like a I was interested in this parallel natural decision. Creatively we The recordings themselves are unlike and also wanted to explore the way EDITOR: So you all clicked at FilmLab. were already deeply engaged in the anything I had ever heard. They are a we consume similar reality based development of the story and style guilty pleasure, hilarious, horrifying We all worked really closely in the ‘entertainment’ today. Lab. We enjoyed each other’s film and running the company meant that and addictive. They have an absurdist the logistics of equipment, personnel Beckett quality, a glimpse into the ideas and processes. We all drove together to and from the workshop and schedules we were already leading. darkest corners of human relationships. EDITOR: Aren’t you involved in this Producing within a company like this Because it’s purely audio, listening phenomenon now? You’re just another everyday, giving us a chance to talk, push and question each other’s work. is therefore a collaborative thing, to it forces you to imagine what fucking link in the chain now! we all take on pieces of the puzzle Peter and Raymond looked like, what Of course as filmmakers we are the based on what we are good at. We also the apartment was like and what their latest satellite spinning around the EDITOR: What did you talk about in engaged co-Producer Julie Byrne, who circumstances were. So many questions Pete and Ray universe. I have laughed those drives each day? has managed the shoots in Australia arise like why is an obviously gay man at the recordings like everyone else, When Matt started talking about SULM and the US [ED: on sets in Australia living with a raging homophobe? Who and have questioned its morality during that time I was struck by his and on location across the US] and recorded this stuff and how did they and my own complicity within that. own feelings of connection to the chased and secured the rights to get out alive? And how is this even I wanted the film to open up a series project. Of course, the subject of numerous archival material and music. legal? These mysteries were seductive. of questions about what we consider SULM is a natural choice for Matt. It’s been a dynamic working process ‘art’ and ‘entertainment’, and why He holds a particular interest in pop and the team are strong and close. EDITOR: What else attracted you to we enjoy laughing at and peeking into culture and the idea of obsession this story? other people’s lives. Does something and as such was clearly drawn to the EDITOR: So how was the experience we consider art cease to be such if material and the subsequent story. My intention making Shut Up Little of making the film? Man! An Audio Misadventure was to we know more about the background But with SULM there were also burning For all of us working on the film, tell a dark and hilarious story about of its creation? I hope our film questions in Matt’s mind, still in watching Matt’s constant grappling the grey areas between love and hate, places the audience in this infinite their infancy at the time.