King Of Laughter

King Of Laughter

Length: 3 Minutes

By: Nick Hillel (2008)

This documentary follows a man in Walsall and holds the record for the longest continuous laugh (world record). The documentary follows him around making the people of Walsall laugh and hopefully making the town a happier place.

Without looking at the name of the documentary beforehand, this shot was actually quite misleading to me. At first I thought that this meant a few shots showing the sad life of the city, saying it's the most unhappiest place to live in Britain makes you both wonder why and also feel sad for those who live there. Then you are introduced to this man, who doesn't stop laughing! It's a nice surprise actually, because you expect a sad informant documentary, however it's much more light hearted than you'd first think.

I think the producing quality of this piece is a little lower than the others I've seen (in my opinion), I wasn't very fond of the camera use as it followed him around, although I understand why they used that idea, because it shows him all the time, always laughing, however it sometimes made the ever-changing backgrounds distracting and sometimes hard to handle. However as before, it was good in the sense that it made the person the centre of the shot, and therefore show the viewer that they are an important character in the work.

Saying that, I do enjoy some of the other shots, when he's with other people, making them laugh. I think they use space well and present happiness in a nice way. 

Another downside to the documentary, in my opinion was some of the sound. The commentary/voiceover itself was quite quiet but clear, but the sounds underneath (the atmos) and other sounds used underneath were sometimes overpowering to me, therefore I didn't really follow what the man was saying, I mostly heard and saw the people laughing.

So, I did like the documentary in the idea it was light-hearted and the idea was presented clearly, but it would have been nice to have more input from the main guy himself, as well as others.