King of Laughter

This is again, similar to pockets, a "3 minute wonder" taken from Channel 4. Its made by Nick Hillel and to quote he says "I don't quite know how and why I came up with this idea, I just wanted to put laughter and fun into peoples lives..." (4docs website).

Its based on a recent poll that claimed "Walsall" to be the most unhappiest place to live in the whole of Britain and so Belachew Girma, the man who holds the current world record for the longest continuous laugh has come to try and change this. It shows him in various different locations such as the pub, a supermarket, the local market etc with a variety of people in trying to make them laugh and supposedly "cheer them up".

In terms of the technical side to it, I really enjoyed this piece. I like how for the opening and ending its Belachew looking around and the camera is moving with him and it almost takes you as a viewer on a journey with him. At times however it does get a little distracting and at a couple of points in the documentary, although its very short, I did almost forget what I was watching. I also really liked the random shots of things in the Supermarket with the voice over of the women in the shop saying "good afternoon shoppers, we've got some very exciting offers for you in store today..." and then it goes straight to a clip of Belachew laughing and the title "King of Laughter" coming up underneath him. This introduction frames the documentary well and just from this, is made me want to watch the rest immediately.

In contrast to the mostly "funny" theme to this documentary, the music that is played at the beginning and throughout is much more serious and I almost feel like it doesn't quite "fit". if you are going to make a documentary on a "king of laughter" surely the music should fit with this and also be rather comical?

Overall I really liked this piece of comical documentary and I will be taking some of the camera angles and editing techniques into consideration when it comes to filming our own documentary in Liverpool!