In 2002, filmmaker Ken Burns received an intriguing proposition from Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. He wanted Burns’ signature filming style to be inserted into the video editing software of every Macintosh computer. He would call it ‘the Ken Burns effect.’
Burns first shot to fame in 1981, when his documentary, Brooklyn Bridge, was nominated for an Academy Award.
He is perhaps best known for his 1990 documentary series, The Civil War, which was watched by more than 40 million Americans when it debuted on PBS, becoming one of the most watched documentaries of all time.
In the time since, Burns has covered a whole array of subjects about American history, including baseball, country music and the Vietnam war.
He tells Matt Pintus about his future plans, including a series about the life of Martin Luther King.
00:00 Introduction
00:24 Early interest in filmmaking and history
02:24 Brooklyn Bridge documentary
05:18 How Ken Burns would film his documentaries
06:48 The Civil War documentary
08:55 The Ken Burns Effect’
11:29 Influence on history
14:18 Future projects
Watch more episodes of Witness History here 👉🏽 • Witness History
“Asking the question of, where did the entire universe come from, is no longer a question for poets and theologians and philosophers. This is a question for scientists, and we have some amazing scientific answers to this question that have defied even the wildest of our expectations.”
Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► / @bigthink
Up next, The mind-blowing circle of life, explained by a biologist ► • The mind-blowing circle of life, expl…
Ethan Siegel, theoretical astrophysicist and science communicator, author of the James Webb Space Telescope book, “Infinite Cosmos,” and writer of the science blog, “Starts With A Bang” joins us to explore the cosmic origins of our universe.