Interview questions for comedy trust
1. How was the comedy trust started?
2. Why was it started?
3. What does the comedy trust do?
4. How do you encourage youth to take part in comedy?
5. I believe you train people to do stand up comedy – if yes then how do you train them?
6. How do you believe humour affects peoples well being?
7. What makes a good joke?
8. What is your favourite joke?
Questions to ask laughology
1. What is your job and how did you train?
2. How does laughing affect us? Physically and emotionally
3. Why do we laugh?
4. How important is laughing?
5. How do you make people laugh?
6. How can laughing improve our lives?
7. Can laughing have any negative affects?
8. What is your favourite joke?
Here are some shots of us filiming the interview:
The sketch above is an example of the framing that we hope to use for the Comedy club interview.
This was an email sent to Kirsteen who works for Laughology. We were able to arrange to interview the owner of the company Stephanie.
We were able to contact Al Murrays publicist as shown above. She agreed to ask Al if he was willing to have an interview with us however we have not heard back.
This email shows Frankie Boyles agency saying that it would not be possible to interview him.
We also emailed Russel Brand who was doing a booksigning in a nearby Waterstones. We had no reply to this email.
We recieved the email above from Simon Peggs agency saying they were afradi that they could not meet our request this time.Archive footage
Video clips from:
New Britain does the funniest things Sat 5.20pm
Lee Evans: Big- Live at the 02 Fri 11.25
History of Laughter
Frankie Boyle controversial jokes:
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:
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 For Documentary
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
1. Gender
Conclusion
2.
3.
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.
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.
This graph shows that the majority of people who said yes to going to comedy events attend the
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.
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.
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 shouldn’t?
Yes£ No£
12. If yes, give examples
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