Secondary Research

Schadenfreude

Satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

· You’ve been framed

Archive footage:

Video clips from:

New Britain does the funniest things Sat 5.20pm

Lee Evans: Big- Live at the 02 Fri 11.25

Clip to show group of people and film reaction-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PC-s_LyiE

History of Laughter

Jokers and Jesters

Punch and judy- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1orgv9WKn4 – 1966

Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedy-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_0EaOO7OFc

That was the week that was- satirical television comedy 1962/1963

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NtmGlvHbqA

Frankie Boyle controversial jokes:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1269541/BBC-forced-apologise-comedian-Frankie-Boyles-disgusting-anti-Semitic-joke.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/19/frankie-boyle-mock-the-week

http://www.scotsman.com/news/Scots-comic-Frankie-Boyle-in.6217300.jp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzV6fpSnkh0

Power of laughter:

http://www.recoverywirral.com/?p=886

http://www.laughtertherapy.com/

Primary Research

For our documentary we thought it would be interesting to interview a proffessional comedian. We telephoned agencies of different comedians and were given email addresses to contact personal publicists and agents etc. We emailed agencies for Simon Pegg, Frankie Boyle, Russell Brand and Al Murray. These were all unsuccessful.

Simon Pegg:


Russell Brand:


Frankie Boyle:



Al Murray:


We also telephoned local comedy clubs and looked for events that were occuring in liverpool and the wirral. We arranged an interview with a member of staff in the laughterhouse which is a comedy club in the slaughterhouse pub in liverpool but they let us down on the day. We telephoned the comedy trust whch is a charity based in the Royal Court theatre in liverpool. Sam who works for the comedy trust agreed to do an interview with us and then also invited us to an under 18s comedy night with a professional headline comedian.

Sams email:

Running Order

Running Order

Documentary: Laughing Matter

Channel: Channel 4

Scheduling: Thursday 8:30 – 9:00pm

Duration: 27 minutes (including advert break)

VOXPOP – Peoples reactions to a joke	20 seconds
Title sequence	20 seconds
Voiceover – introducing topic of the documentary and addressing it as a whole. Montage of people laughing, comedy venues, film posters and stand up	50 seconds
History montage, clips from jesters, punch and Judy, Laurel and Hardy, that was the week that was up to modern day comedy	1 minute
Laughter clinic as a medicine or stress relief interview + cross cut with clips from archive	1 minute
VOXPOP – Peoples favourite jokes	30 seconds
Interview with psychologist about what effect laughing has/ why do people laugh	1:30 minutes
Controversial comedy – archive footage Frankie Boyle + voiceover explaining. Schadenfreude – reactions watching Schadenfreude on screen	30 seconds
Comedy as an event – wide shots of crowds at Edinburgh comedy festival	20 seconds
Interview with John Bishop – talking about importance of comedy as an event and his experiences at the festival. Cross cut between interview and footage from the festival e.g. comedians shows, crowds around Edinburgh, street performers	2 minutes
Interview with various comedians about how they come up with material and how they know what will make people laugh – cuts between interviews and their shows and audiences laughter	1:30 minutes
How humour can affect relationships – interviews with laughter clinic and psychologist crosscut with shots of groups of people socialising	1:30 minutes
Cuts between interview with psychologist talking about how laughter can help relieve stress and shots of students working, students in exams, office workers etc	45 seconds
Interview with laughter therapist with cuts between the interview and shots of laughter therapy sessions	45 seconds
ADVERT BREAK	3 minutes
How humour differs between different social, age and ethnic groups – wide shots of stereotypical groups e.g. chavs, students, adults and people of different ethnicities. Narrator voiceover	30 seconds
Interview with comedian Chris Rock about humour within ethnic groups which cuts back to interview with Psychologist. Cuts between archive footage of Chris Rock stand up – showing majority of audience is black.	2 minutes
How different comedians appeal to different audiences – archive footage of comedians stand up shows and the contrast between the audiences.	30 seconds
Different cultures from around the world and how humour differs	1 minute
Taboo subjects – what shouldn’t be joked about e.g. racism – cuts between interviews with psychologist, comedians etc	2 minutes 30 seconds
VOXPOP – What topics do people believe should not be laughed at	1 minute
The dangers of comedy – history of jokes that have caused serious offence / practical jokes that have gone wrong – archive footage of newspaper headlines	30 seconds
Interview with person who has suffered from a practical joke gone wrong	2 minutes 20 seconds
Montage of different footage from previously in the documentary with narrator giving overall summary	1 minute
Archive footage – internet clips of funny videos with credits rolling on screen	50 seconds

Formal Proposal

Topic - Laughter

Type of documentary – Mixed

Style of documentary – Informal and informative, fully narrated

Channel and scheduling – Channel 4 – 8:30 Thursday night

Target Audience- young adults/teenagers 15-20

Primary research needed -

· Laughter clinic women

· Psychology Teacher

· Vox Pop, What’s your favourite joke? Filming their reaction to a joke.

· Comedian?

· Locations for filming

· Interview with person who has attended comedy event

· Props for mise-en-scene

Secondary research needed –

· Schadenfreude

· Archive footage : clips of peoples misfortune, comedy events, magazine articles and reviews – Frankie Boyle controversy, music relevant to topic, radio extracts,

· History of jokes

· Jokes within different social groups / cultures e.g racism, Chris rock, yo momma jokes, immature sense of humour vs intellectual comedy

Narrative structure – Single strand, Linear, Open

Outline of content- Different peoples + different social groups sense of humours and how they vary, Origins of jokes, Worst + Best jokes, Laughter therapy, Laughter clinic + interview with person who runs it, Laughing at others misfortune, Taboo subjects – shouldn’t be laughed at, Relieve stress, VOXPOP – favourite jokes + reaction to jokes, How humour differs within different cultures, Interview with psychologist/psychology teacher, Interview with professional comedian, stand up comedy show, Edinburgh comedy festival, Comedy as a mass event, Footage of people lughing, How laughter affects people emotionally, mentally and physically, Fake laughter + nervous laughter, How laughter can affect relationships.

Resource requirements –

· Digital video camera

· Microphone

· Tripod

· PC with adobe premier pro software

· Tape

Audience Research : Audio

Target Audience Research: Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire results
1. Gender

Conclusion

The majority of people who answered the questionnaire were female.

2. Age

Conclusion

The majority of people who filled in the questionnaire were aged 16-20. This means that the documentary will be aimed at this age group. It will also require us to schedule the documentary on a channel and time that will attract the target audience.

3. What is your favourite colour?

Conclusion

The results show that blue, pink, purple and orange are all high scoring colours. This will help us when choosing colours to used during the documentary for example title colour, in order to attract our target audience.

4. What TV channel do you watch most?

Conclusion

The majority of people who filled in the questionnaire said that they watched the channel E4 or channel 4 most. This will help us decide what channel to schedule the documentary on.

5. What time do you usually watch TV?

Conclusion

The results of the questionnaire show that the average time that the audience watch TV is at night (8.30) onwards. This will mean that our documentary will be scheduled during this time.

6. What is your favourite music genre?

Conclusion

The majority of the people who filled in the questionnaire answered pop. This will help us decide what music to include during the documentary.

7. Who is your favourite comedian?

The majority of people we asked to complete our questionnaire said that their favourite comedian is Lee Evans with both Russell Howard and Jason Manford being the second and third most popular. These results suggest that it would appeal to our target audience to feature these comedians in our documentary.

8. Do you attend comedy events?

This result shows that the majority of people we surveyed do not usually attend comedy events.

9. If yes then which events?

This graph shows that the majority of people who said yes to going to comedy events attend the Edinburgh comedy festival. This shows that if we include footage of the festival in our documentary it would appeal to our target audience.

10. What makes you laugh?

The majority of people who answered our questionnaire told us that what make them laugh most is jokes. This lets us know that to appeal to the target audience we should include jokes in our documentary.

11. Do you laugh at things you shouldn’t?

This graph shows that the majority of people we asked to complete our questionnaire admit to laughing at things that they shouldn’t.

12. If yes then give examples.

The majority of people who said they laughed at things they shouldn’t said it was people falling over and people hurting themselves that made them laugh most. This shows that we should include these in our documentary.

Target Audience Research: Questionnaire

Questionnaire

1. Gender

Female £ Male£

2. Age

Under 15£ 16-20£ 21-30£ 31-40£ Over 40£

3. What is your favourite colour?

_________________________________________________________________

4. What TV channel do you watch most?

_________________________________________________________________

5. What time do you usually watch TV?

_________________________________________________________________

6. What is your favourite music genre?

_________________________________________________________________

7. Who is your favourite comedian?

_________________________________________________________________

8. Do you attend comedy event?

_________________________________________________________________

9. If yes which one?

_________________________________________________________________

10. What makes you laugh?

_________________________________________________________________

11. Do you ever laugh at things you shouldnt?

Yes£ No£

12. If yes, give examples

__________________________________________________________________

Initial Plans for documentary

Topic of Documentary: Laughter
Target Audience - Young Adults/ Teenagers 15-20
Channel - Channel 4
Scheduling - 8:30 pm Thursday night, Hammocking between two already popular programmes.
Documentary Title: Laughing Matters

Brainstorm of content for documentary

This is a mind map of ideas for content that we could include in our documentary.