Ken Burns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other people named Burns, see Burns (disambiguation).

Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953[1] [2]) is an American documentary filmmaker.

Burns is well known for his style in documentary material, making use of original prints and photographs, and has produced several acclaimed historical and biographical documentaries for television and film. Among his most notable productions were miniseries on the American Civil War (The Civil War, 1990), baseball (Baseball, 1994), and jazz (JAZZ, 2001).

Burns's documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards 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.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Ken Burns Effect 3 The Civil War 4 Documentaries 5 Bibliography 6 External links

[edit] Biography

Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 29, 1953. He is a graduate of 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. Burns received a L.H.D. from Bates College in 2002. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire with his wife Julie. He has three daughters.

Burns's brother, Ric Burns, is also a noted documentary filmmaker, whose work has appeared on national public television for nearly two decades, earning significant recognition. Ric Burns is perhaps best known for his epic PBS series, New York: A Documentary Film.

Burns delivered the commencement address for the Georgetown College Class of 2006 at Georgetown University[3] and also for Lehigh University's Class of 2006.

[edit] Ken Burns Effect

Main article: 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 a rest on the player the narrator is discussing. This has been called the Ken Burns effect.

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 even screen savers. In film editing, non-linear editing systems such as iMovie and iPhoto (from Apple Computer, which also uses this effect for most of its screensavers) 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 slideshows the phone creates from the pictures stored in it. [4] 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. Such people include Shelby Foote and Buck O'Neil.

[edit] The Civil War

Main article: The Civil War (documentary)

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 $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. (PBS.org)

[edit] Documentaries

Burns's documentaries include:

• Brooklyn Bridge, in 1981
• The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God, in 1984
• The Statue of Liberty, in 1985
• Huey Long, in 1985
• Congress, in 1988
• Thomas Hart Benton, in 1988
• The Civil War, in 1990
• Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, in 1991
• Baseball, in 1994
• The West, in 1996
• Thomas Jefferson in 1997
• Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, in 1997
• Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1998
• Not For Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, in 1999
• JAZZ, in 2001
• Mark Twain, in 2001
• Horatio's Drive, in 2003
• Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, in 2004

At the moment Ken Burns is working on three more documentaries:

• The War, to be released in 2007
• America’s Best Idea: Our National Parks, to be released in 2009
• Forbidden Fruit: Prohibition in America

Burns's short films include:

• William Segal, in 1992
• Vézelay, in 1996
• In the Marketplace, in 2000

[edit] Bibliography

• Ken Burns bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

[edit] External links

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