For many Americans, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is responsible for changing the way they view their nation’s history.
Now, Penn State U. students have the chance to watch Burns on the other side of the camera to find out what makes him tick.
At noon today on the Big 10 Network, Burns will appear in an interview — part of “Conversations from Penn State,” a WPSU-TV program that normally airs 12 different episodes per year. The station added an extra episode to its usual lineup to accommodate Burns, “Conversations” producer Lindsey Whissel said.
“We heard he was coming to campus to speak at the College of Communications commencement in May,” Whissel said. “And he’s just such an icon for public TV. It was a complete no-brainer to ask him to be part of the show.”
Burns is a 30-year veteran of documentary filmmaking. A handful of his numerous films and PBS series include “The Civil War,” “The War,” “Jazz,” “Baseball,” and “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”
Though Burns’ films have spanned such a wide variety of topics, he said they all cover common ground.
“In some ways I’m making the same film over and over again,” Burns said. “They are all nonetheless trying to come to the understanding of who we are as Americans.”
His Emmy award-winning films have had a heavy impact on Americans of all ages. Kristian Berg, a producer at WPSU-TV, said Burns’ films inspired him to make documentaries on history in his own region.
“He was really a game-changer. He wasn’t the first one to use that style, but he was the one to first plant it in the public’s imagination,” Berg said. “He was able to tell stories in a way that people hadn’t seen before.”
Student filmmaker Max Simone (sophomore-film and video and English) said he used to watch Burns’ series “The War” and discuss it at the lunch table the next day at school.
“He’s been able to take something mundane and make it interesting,” Simone said. “Every student film uses the Ken Burns effect. It’s common knowledge to all filmmakers and it has helped a lot of videos.”
The “Ken Burns effect” is a filming technique Burns uses in his documentaries in which he zooms and scans still images.
Burns said his documentaries can spark a greater interest than a history class or show on the History Channel.
“The history channel is relatively superficial,” Burns said. “In our films we like to present a complex history. And a complex history is a history that can be a guide to where we are and where we’re going.”