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Ken Burns
Birth name	Kenneth Lauren Burns
Born	July 29, 1953 (1953-07-29) (age 54) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Julie Deborah Brown (2003-present) Amy Stechler Burns (1982-1993)
Awards Emmy Awards Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming 1991 The Civil War Outstanding Informational Series 1991 The Civil War 1995 JAZZ Outstanding Nonfiction Special 2005 Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Kenneth Lauren Burns (born 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 Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001) and The War (2007).

Contents 1 Biography 2 Career 2.1 Ken Burns Effect 2.2 The Civil War 2.3 Controversy 3 Ken Burns in popular culture 4 Filmography 5 References 6 External links

Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York City, 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 a Doctor of Humane Letters degree (an honorary degree from Bates College, L.H.D. 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.

Main article: Ken Burns Effect

In common with the makers of documentaries on subjects where principally still material is available, Burns often gives life to still photographs by slowly zooming in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another, a technique first used in Alistair Cooke's 13 part PBS mini-series "Alistair Cooke's America" in 1973^{[citation needed]}. 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.

This effect, present in many professional and home software applications was affectionately named "The Ken Burns Effect" in Apple's iPhoto and iMovie software. 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.

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 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.

The Ken Burns World War II PBS documentary entitled The War was originally scheduled to premiere on September 16, 2007^[3] but later shifted to September 23, 2007. However, it has come under criticism due to the fact that the version which 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 (As many as half a million Hispanics fought in World War II.)^[4][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 Burns'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.^[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.^[7]

• 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 Civil War: The Reenactments" in an obvious parody of Burns' "Civil War."
• In an episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius where Jimmy and his friends travel to Egypt, his classmates are watching a "97 hour-long documentary about Egypt by Ken Burns."
• In The Simpsons episode "Pray Anything", Homer watches a documentary by and about Ken Burns.

• Brooklyn Bridge (1981)
• Remembering Chicago and World War 2 (1982)
• The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984)
• The Statue of Liberty (1985)
• Huey Long (1985)
• Congress (1988)
• Thomas Hart Benton (1988)
• The Civil War (1990)
• Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991)
• Baseball (1994)
• Thomas Jefferson (1997)
• Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (1997)
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1998)
• Not For Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (1999)
• Jazz (2001)
• Mark Twain (2001)
• Horatio's Drive (2003)
• Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)
• The War (2007)
• The National Parks (2009)
• Forbidden Fruit: Prohibition in America (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)

• Ken Burns at All Movie Guide
• Ken Burns at the Internet Movie Database
• 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.
• Commencement address by Ken Burns to the Georgetown College Class of 2006 at Georgetown University
• Ken Burns bibliography

v • d • e Films of Ken Burns
1980s	Brooklyn Bridge (1981) · Remembering Chicago and World War II (1982) · The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984) · The Statue of Liberty (1985) · Huey Long (1985) · Congress (1988) · Thomas Hart Benton (1988)
1990s	The Civil War (1990) · Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991) · Baseball (1994) · The West (1996) · Thomas Jefferson (1997) · Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (1997) · Frank Lloyd Wright (1998) · Not For Ourselves Alone (1999)
2000s	Jazz (2001) · Mark Twain (2001) · Horatio's Drive (2003) · Unforgivable Blackness (2004) · The War (2007) · The National Parks (2009)
See also:	Ken Burns Effect