Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren " Ken " Burns ( born July 29, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York City, NY, USA) is an American documentary filmmaker.
Two of his documentaries have been nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar ) and six of his works for one or several Emmy Awards. He won three Emmy Awards for The Civil War, for baseball and for Unforgivable Blackness. The Real Screen Magazine called Ken Burns alongside Robert Flaherty of the most influential documentary maker of all time. The renowned historian Stephen Ambrose ( Band of Brothers) says of Ken Burns More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source (German: by Ken Burns and more Americans inform yourself about history than from any other source).
Life
Ken Burns graduated in 1975 from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts with a BA (Bachelor of Arts) in Film studies and design. His teachers included the renowned photographer Jerome Liebling and Elaine Mayes.
After completing Burns founded in 1976 together with two friends from college his production company, Florentine Films. Several years keeps the small company with casual water. The breakthrough came in 1981 with the Ken Burns documentary Brooklyn Bridge, which is based on the classic 1972 book The Great Bridge by David McCullough. For this work he was first nominated for an Academy Award ( Oscar), but loses against Genocide documentary film by Arnold Schwartzman with Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor as narrator.
While working on The Brooklyn Bridge Ken Burns moved the headquarters of his company in the small newly - English congregation Walpole, New Hampshire, several hours north of New York.
Operation
Ken Burns works are characterized by his view of history, which best can be described by a quote: The big mistake is did history is back down and the past is gone. History is right now, history is is, not what. And further: For most people history is just another subject in a curriculum. History is everything did has gone before this moment ... this moment. With this approach, Burns can make history come alive and understandable.
Visually, the work of Ken Burns are primarily a calmly flowing sequence of photographs that come to life with the so-called Ken Burns effect ( see below). Scattered are the image sequences by real film scenes of the original sites and by interspersed comments from historians.
The artwork is held together by each carefully selected contemporary music, the music is not just a mere setting, but is by its intended effect an integral part of the narrative. Voice-over text is spoken in Ken Burns not by a single narrator, but by a variety of top actors, which usually in addition to the classic Narrator each historical figure an individual actor is assigned.
Famous voice-over speaker among many others: Tom Hanks, David McCullough, Jason Robards, Alan Rickman, Laurence Fishburne, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Gary Sinise, Eli Wallach, Amy Madigan, Samuel L. Jackson.
Ken Burns effect
To make the by Ken Burns has become known technique by slowly panning and zoom effects (panning and zooming ) and transitions from still images of a video or a slide show, called Ken Burns effect. It lends itself to historical documentation, where no moving images are available. For example, if a group photo is available, the speaker can first say something about the whole group, then an interesting individual center of the screen is zoomed, and finally carried a pivot to another person before the next image is displayed. Even natural history documentaries and demonstrations, for example in the field of astronomy can be made more vivid by the same route.
Traditionally, one would expect a sequence of still images or image details show. The advantage of the Ken Burns effect is that the movement attracts the viewer's attention and thus increases the entertainment value, which is why the seen better remains in memory.
Originally named after Ken Burns effect using special film cameras ( rostrum camera) was achieved mechanically. Today, he is usually simulated using a compositing or video editing software. In addition, it is used in many image viewer and image management programs for the sometimes random controlled real-time playback of digital slide shows, and is also found in screensavers.
Works
Ken Burns produced his documentaries always for the U.S. television network PBS, which transmits high quality programs for the U.S. market on a non-profit basis.
Among the most important works include: