That soundman is Igby Walters (Wayne Pére) and he works for a self-centered director who won't listen to Igby's pleas that he give his talented neighbor, violinist Juliet (Elaine Chappuis), a fair shot. At DVD Talk, Holly E. Ordway calls Igby "likable yet flawed; on the one hand, I wanted everything to work out for him, yet on the other hand I was appalled by how badly he was screwing things up. It's an ambivalence that grows deeper as the movie develops, and by the end it leaves the viewer with a situation that can't be tidily categorized as win or lose, good or bad, but only in shades of gray. Without spoiling anything, I can assure you that Soundman has a definitely non-Hollywood plot, one that has you genuinely unsure what is going to happen.... We may smile at Igby in his predicaments, but it's in empathy for him and for the situation; it highlights, rather than defuses, the effectiveness of the dramatic elements in the story." Shown in competition at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival.