About Us
Laugh Logger is coded, maintained, and administered by Jeremy Butler, a Creative Media JCM professor, at the University of Alabama. It was formerly a service of the Telecommunication and Film Department, the College of Communication and Information Sciences, and the University of Alabama.
Changelog
- January 1, 2020: Version 0.3, converted code to PHP Data Objects (PDO); moved to new server.
- November 1, 2014: Laugh Logger went into early alpha (public) release.
- 13:44 CDT on October 30, 2014: Laugh Logger was forked from Shot Logger. It has been munching on laughtrack data since laugh data from a Seinfeld episode were input into the system.
Current Data Summary
- Separate laugh instances logged: 540 (some multiple instances are taken from individual episodes to allow for commercial breaks)
- TV programs logged: 47
- Individual laughs (screen shots) logged: 37,991
- Average length of all laugh intervals: 16.20
- Data last updated: February 09, 2018
The Software
Laugh Logger was inspired by CineMetrics, which generously provides the charts displayed here. And it relies heavily on the VLC Media Player's ability to capture images from video.
Laugh Logger is written in the PHP scripting language and is powered by a MySQL database and the Apache Web server -- all of which runs on Linux.
Laugh Logger is an open-source project and the images stored here are intended for non-commercial, critical, teaching, and scholarship purposes (see our copyright statement). The Laugh Logger code, its Shot Logger codebase, and Shot/Laugh Logger data are copyrighted © 2007-2023 by Jeremy Butler, but they are distributed under the GNU General Public License, Version 3—meaning that you may make non-commerical use of them as long as you attribute Laugh Logger and agree to share your own work under a similar license.
No programming code, data, text, images, or video/sound on LaughLogger.org may be reproduced for commercial purposes. However, educational and other non-commercial uses are permitted, if proper attribution is given.
Laugh Logger To-Do List
Laugh Logger is still in early stages of development. Much remains to do.
- Create system to delete bad frames/data from LL.
- Add more charts, using Google (?) or another charting engine.
- Calculate cumulative data for Laugh Logger & chart it automatically.
- Make data available for download.
- Publicly release to GitHub.
- Before public release, create a config file with variables to site-specific info (including Twitter account)
