I just discovered Ken Burns - what a treasure!

[gb2000ie]

As an Irishman I associate good educational TV with the BBC, and they do a lot of really great doentaries.

Thanks to satellite TV, I assumed all American doentaries were like the drek Discovery Channel like to show - "when X attacks" and other such sensationalistic low-fact drivel.

To me, Ken Burns is a button I use on Final Cut Pro when I'm editing video!

Thanks to NetFlix, I now know better - Ken Burns is superb director, and PBS is capable of equalling the very best of the BBC!

Ken Burns' 11 hour epic series on the American Civil War is a masterpiece! So good I stayed up till 3am on Sunday because I just couldn't stop watching. I'm now making my way through his series on WWII from the American point of view - I thought I had a good grasp on that horrid war, having grown up with first-hand stories of living under German occupation from my grand parents, but I'd only see it from a European point of view, the facts are the same from both sides of the Atlantic, but the experience was different, and I hadn't understood that difference as well until now.

Anyway - anyone else who enjoys quality factual TV, and has never seen Ken Burns' work, you owe it to yourself to check it out!

B.

 

[topdog]

Amen! My local public TV station is currently running the newly restored (HD) version of The Civil War. I saw it when it originally aired decades ago, but it holds up so well. Burns' genius was in crafting a way to take old photos and letters and turn them into what feels like a movie with characters and plot. His series on the U.S. National Parks is my favorite. My second favorite is the story of the Prohibition of alcohol that came and went.

 

[gorgik9]

I'm also a lover of high quality factual TV! Thanks to gb and topdog for great suggestions!

 

[Shelter]

I'm also a lover of high quality factual TV! Thanks to gb and topdog for great suggestions!

:agree::agree::agree::agree:
I'm as well a great lover of good and interesting doentaries.

 

[garth33]

as a small person working in television YES YES YES Ken Burns is an amazing storyteller....which is all anyone who works in the media ever aspired to be....until the age of MEMEME TV/aka Reality television - but that's another story:-o

Ken Burns Civil War DOCS are amazing...
His Baseball DOCS are amazing too (for people that do/might/or ever care about american baseball)

He also innovated a tilt-shift/3-d-esque still photo effect in Photoshop that bears his name....it DID lend visual interest to his original docs...a push/pull scaling effect I'm STILL trying to master:thinking:

Still a fan,
g33

 

[camyoo]

Some of the best programming ever produced for television, IMHO.

 

[trencherman]

Don't forget his series on Jazz too. Just to think that a lot of commercial networks rejected his projects before he found a niche in public TV tells you a lot about commercial networks.

 

[gb2000ie]

Don't forget his series on Jazz too. Just to think that a lot of commercial networks rejected his projects before he found a niche in public TV tells you a lot about commercial networks.

I think the honesty of his doentaries does not go over well with commercial stations - a lot of our histories are air-brushed and romanticised, Ken Burns' are not, and that often makes for very uncomfortable viewing.

B.