Ken Burns

Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29 , 1953 ) is an American Documentary filmmaker.

Burns is particularly 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 Award s. He won three Emmy Awards for ''The Civil War'', for ''Baseball'' and for ''Unforgivable Blackness''.

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, 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.''

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.

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 technique came to be known as the Ken Burns Effect, even though he did not originate the technique, and has become a staple of documentaries, slide shows, presentations, and even screen savers. In Film Editing , Non-linear Editing System s such as IMovie and IPhoto (from Apple Computer ) 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 Screensaver s that slowly pan and zoom through a slide show of Digital Photograph s on a computer's Hard Disk .

''THE CIVIL WAR''

Burns's film series ''The Civil War'' is generally considered to be his masterpiece. Burns was the 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 Award s, 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)

DOCUMENTARIES

Burns's documentaries include: