KEN BURNS

'Kenneth Lauren Burns' (b. July 29, 1953) is an American director and producer of documentary films known for his style of making use of original prints and photographs. Among his most notable productions are the ''The Civil War'' (1990), ''Baseball'' (1994), and ''Jazz'' (2001).

Contents

Biography

Career

Ken Burns Effect

''The Civil War''

Controversy

Ken Burns in popular culture

Filmography

References

External links

Biography

Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York, and went on to graduate from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1975, and went on to be one of the co-founders of Florentine Films.^[1] He received an L.H.D. from Bates College in 2002, and currently resides in Walpole, New Hampshire with his wife Julie and three daughters.
Burns's brother, Ric Burns, is also a noted documentary filmmaker.
Burns delivered the commencement address for the Georgetown College Class of 2006 at Georgetown University and also for Lehigh University's Class of 2006.^[2] He was also the keynote speaker for the opening of National History Day at the University of Maryland in 2007.

Career

Ken Burns Effect

In his documentaries, Burns often gives life to still photographs by slowly zooming in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another. For example, in a photograph of a baseball team, he might slowly pan across the faces of the players and come to rest on the player the narrator is discussing.
The effect can be used as a transition between clips as well. For example, to segue from one person in the story to another, he might open a clip with a close-up of one person in a photo, then zoom out so that another person in the photo becomes visible. This is especially practicable when covering older subjects where there is little or no available film. The zooming and panning across photographs gives the feeling of motion, and keeps the viewer visually entertained.
This technique has become a staple of documentaries, slide shows, presentations, and screen savers. In film editing, non-linear editing systems such as iMovie and iPhoto often include an effect or transition called Ken Burns Effect, with which a still image may be incorporated into a film using this kind of slow pan and zoom. It is also seen in screensavers that slowly pan and zoom through a slide show of digital photographs on a computer's hard disk. It is interesting to note that Ken Burns does not receive monetary compensation for the use of this technique, although he has an agreement with Apple to provide computers for children.
The effect has also been implemented by Nokia in their N73 smartphone, applied to the slide shows the phone creates from the pictures stored in it.^[3] The term has also been used less formally to refer to a person gaining an increased degree of celebrity after appearing in a Burns documentary.

''The Civil War''

Burns's film series ''The Civil War'' is generally considered to be his masterpiece. Narrated by Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough, Burns filled in many other roles, serving as director, producer, co-writer, chief cinematographer, music director and executive producer of ''The Civil War''. The series has been honored with more than 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild of America, People's Choice Award, Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, D.W. Griffith Award, and the US$50,000 Lincoln Prize, among dozens of others. The nine episodes explore the Civil War through personal stories and photos that create a very different kind of experience from watching nearly any other modern movie today. During the creation of the movie Burns filmed thousands of archived photographs. This resulted in the coining of the aforementioned term the “Ken Burns Effect”.
''The Civil War'' has been viewed by more than 40 million people.
Burns's documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards (''Brooklyn Bridge'' in 1982 and ''The Statue of Liberty'' in 1986) and six of his documentaries have been nominated for one or more Emmy Awards. He won three Emmy Awards for ''The Civil War'', for ''Baseball'' and for ''Unforgivable Blackness''.

Controversy

The upcoming Ken Burns World War II PBS documentary entitled ''The War'' — originally scheduled to premiere on September 16, 2007^[4] but later shifted to September 23, 2007 — has come under criticism by some because the version that first became available for preview made no mention of the contributions of Hispanics in the war, despite the fact that it contains focused coverage of other minority groups and that as many as half a million Hispanics fought in World War II. Commentary: Honor Latinos' sacrifice even if 'The War' doesn't ^[5] The original air date became part of the debate, as September 16 is Mexican Independence Day and starts the observance in the United States of Hispanic Heritage Month. This in turn has attracted renewed attention to Ken Burn's omissions of Hispanic contributions in his earlier documentaries on baseball and jazz. Under pressure from advocacy groups, and after initially insisting that no changes would be made, PBS and Burns agreed to add supplementary content to the 14-hour documentary and include a Latino filmmaker, Hector Galán, to accomplish this. The Story Must Be Told and The History Preserved
Although at first the dispute seemed to be settled with the inclusion of additional footage to address the omission, in the subsequent weeks, groups began to question conflicting reports from Burns and PBS as to whether the additional footage would be provided as supplementary material or would be integrated into the overall program.^[6] As of mid-July, 2007, estimates put out by Burns suggested that additional footage showing interviews with two Hispanics and one Native American would be added to the series, for a total of 28 minutes additional footage to the nearly 15 hours the program was originally planned to cover; the additional footage would air at the conclusion of the selected episodes, but before each episode's final credits.^[7]

Ken Burns in popular culture

★ The 2004 mockumentary short ''The Old Negro Space Program'' parodies Burns's film making (even opening its credits by stating "A film not by Ken Burns"), relying heavily upon so-called "Ken Burns Effect" shots, Burns-style plaintive piano bridges, and "letters home" read by a narrator over still pictures.

★ An episode of the 1990s HBO sketch comedy series "Mr. Show" featured a video mockumentary entitled "The Cicil War: The Reenactments" in an obvious parody of Burns' "Civil War."

★ In an episode of '' where Jimmy and his friends travel to Egypt, his classmates are watching a "97 hour-long documentary about Egypt by Ken Burns."

★ American comedian Wayne Federman plays "tribute" to Ken Burns' ''JAZZ'' documentary at the close of his ''Comedy Central Presents'' special.

★ In The Simpsons episode "''Pray Anything''", Homer watches a documentary by and about Ken Burns.

Filmography

★ ''Brooklyn Bridge'' (1981)

★ ''Remembering Chicago and World War 2'' (1982)

★ '' (1984)

★ ''The Statue of Liberty'' (1985)

★ ''Huey Long'' (1985)

★ ''Congress'' (1988)

★ ''Thomas Hart Benton'' (1988)

★ ''The Civil War'' (1990)

★ '' (1991)

★ ''Baseball'' (1994)

★ ''Thomas Jefferson'' (1997)

★ '' (1997)

★ ''Frank Lloyd Wright'' (1998)

★ '' (1999)

★ ''JAZZ'' (2001)

★ ''Mark Twain'' (2001)

★ ''Horatio's Drive'' (2003)

★ '' (2004)

★ ''The War'' (2007)

★ '' (2009)

★ '' (to be determined)
Under Burns' name

★ ''The West'' (1996) (Executive Producer, Directed by Steven Ives)
Short Films

★ ''William Segal'' (1992)

★ ''Vezelay'' (1997)

★ ''In the Marketplace'' (2000)

References

1. Ken Burns biography
2. 2006 Commencement Address Ken Burns
3.
4. Carlos Guerra. "PBS' WW II film no longer on Diez y Seis, but still no Latinos," ''San Antonio Express-News'', February 23, 2007.
5. Latinos left out of "The War"
6. Paul Farhi. "Ken Burns Agrees To Expand Documentary: Inclusion of Minority WWII Service Members Follows Latino Protests," ''Washington Post'', April 18, 2007, page C-1.
7. Associated Press. "Ken Burns adds half-hour to 'The War' series to include Hispanic, American Indian veterans," July 11, 2007.

External links

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★ Ken Burns at PBS

★ Downloadable 15-minute interview with Ken Burns from Wisconsin Public Television Ken Burns talks about his passion for filmmaking, his upcoming project "The War," and the controversies surrounding it.

★ Defend The Honor Campaign to Include Latinos in THE WAR

★ Commencement address by Ken Burns to the Georgetown College Class of 2006 at Georgetown University

★ Ken Burns bibliography