Inside PBS Blog

Hi Ken,

here are the questions:

~if you were going to do a film on the "war on poverty" what people, institutions or organizations would you feature prominently in your film?

~is the problem of hunger one of scarcity or one of distribution (or some other issue)?

~can we trust the "free market" to feed the world's populations?

~what can we learn from past failures at eliminating hunger?

~what impact will global warming and the emerging growth of China and India's economies have on food security around the globe

Thanks

Tim

Hi Ken,

My questions for you pertain to marijuana. As an award-winning documentarian, I do look forward to your feedback to this issue which has been most puzzling to me.

1.) Why are we spending billions of dollars keeping marijuana illegal when, in the span of 2000 years, zero people have overdosed on it?

2.) Do you think marijuana should remain illegal when it has twice the biofuel yield per acre than corn, a primary source of feedstock for humans and farm animals?

3.) Do you know what marijuana looks like?

4.) Taking into consideration the product for the end-user of beer (a 12 oz. bottle) and marijuana (one cigarette-style joint), which process currently uses the most water and energy to manufacture (packaging, shipping, storing)?

5.) If you needed help to work on this documentary, would you please consider me ^_^ ?

Thank you very much for your time.

Best regards,

Jerry D. Elmore

1) What has most surprised you about story telling in a documentary form?
2) Do you think through the emotional journey of the viewer as they watch your film?
3) Do the stories you've told in the past compel you to watch them again, or are you always looking to the next story?

1) Is it true that your love of baseball and jazz has consumed you so much that you have never made time to get a proper haircut?

2) Is it true that although you love baseball, you cannot attend a game because the fresh air gives you hives?

Hi Ken,
Your work is amazing and I've enjoyed all of it. Baseball has been my favorite to date.

1) Would you ever consider doing a history piece on the sport of fencing in the US? With the recent success of US fencing and the fact that fencing in the US is well over a hundred years it would make an interesting story especially in regards to how technology and training have shaped the sport. The people side is very intriguing given it's one sport men and women can compete equally in.

best regards,
Marty Tetloff

What inspires your subject choices?

Do you normally get full cooperation?

Is this career what you envisioned for yourself when you were a child?

Ken,

Thank you for your amazing work!

1) How has the internet changed documentary film storytelling?

2) Can you consider being more experimental with your documentary web pages? My guess is you don't direct their development as much as you do with your films. Frankly, your sites are really stale and they all look the same with lots of boxes. It's just such a shame since your films tell such important historical stories.

Thanks,

Anne

What is the most amziaing thing you've learned working on this series?

I'm a HUGE fan. Thanks for this opportunity!

1) Do you keep an ongoing "wish list" of topics you would like to create programs about, or do you find that one great idea (each time) and go with it?

2) As a history buff, I'm amazed at how little Americans know/think about WWI. Have you considering doing a piece on it, and what angle would you take?

3) How do you decide what format works best for a particular program? Do you start by assembling the information and let it take a "shape," or do you have a direction in mind from the beginning and form everything in that direction?

I've talked with PBS staff before about how long it takes something to clear for air nationally.

How does this time lag affect your planning process and a production process?

How long does it take to get clearances for all the material that goes into a production, especially with production like Baseball where a large number of people are still alive who are portrayed in the documentary?

What do you think of the work of Erol Morris, Michael Moore and others who are lumped into the 'Documentary' category but who may be overtly political in their point of view as expressed in their work?

Hi Ken, I have really enjoyed your documentaries. I've got most on DVD, with the Civil War series being my favorite.

Have you ever considered doing a documentary on the legendary Texas Rangers from the 19th century? There's a mountain of material available, particularly at the Hall of Fame in Waco. I've yet to see a really good video piece on them. My great grandfather served with them in the 1880s on the border.

Thanks!

Hi Ken!

First of all, thank you for doing these amazing documentaries. These films not only help Americans get to know about some of the more important issues around the world and at home from a fresh and fair perspective. Here's my questions:

1. There are definitely a lot of topics you wished to do a film on, how do you prioritize them? Will you choose to do a docu on say, drugs in America first rather than the wild west for instance? How do you go about planning which subject must be the first you need to do?

2. Will you ever do films outside the docu genre?
3. What would you consider the most rewarding thing/comment/news/awards you've received regarding your work as a filmmaker?
4. Did you always wanted to become a filmmaker? Who would be the people you find inspiring?
5. The internet definitely is making an impact on how people view docu films. What would you say to bloggers who promote them?

Mr. Burns: If you could imagine yourself 25-50 years in the future, making a film about anything from the late 90s to Sept 2008, what story would you most want to tell?

Mr. Burns,

Given advances in technology (such as hand-held HD camcorders) and distribution channels like YouTube, is it easy or harder for a filmmaker to break into the business today? Does it put more pressure on established filmmakers?

Is your new documentary on National Parks going to discuss the explosive issue of stolen land grants of old Hispano families, particularly in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado, or do Latinos not exist again in YOUR version of American history?

Please tell how you found this letter and your first impressions on reading it.

Very few things in my life have had such an impact on me as to remember exactly where and when I first heard it.

As you do, I always carry a copy with me.

Hi Ken - Have always enjoyed your great documentaries. I wonder when doing your research for the Civil War, what suprised you the most about the Confederate soldiers, and the Northern soldiers?

In regard to baseball, if you could have one item from the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, what would it be?

Looking forward to the National Parks,

Regards,

Mary

How do turn an "idea" into a story?

Ken,

Few people could do justice to the wide topic of North American firefighting and the contemporary fire service, not just FDNY, as could you.

After 9/11, firefighters were treated by the media as mythic heroes, but reality has been very different, and many lose their lives each year as pols grudgingly support this basic and storied service

Movies and T.V. have not, yet, captured the stories in a believable fashion to my mind yet there is a rich history full of art, politics, growth of nations to name a few.

Have you ever considered a wide-ranging series which is seen through the lens of firefighting its people and their history? I'd love to discuss this idea with you.

Will

hi Ken - enjoy your work. Interesting topic - here goes:

We do everything possible so that our mortgage is the first out the door each month, it's a struggle. So if there is going to be a government program that is designed to help those who are not able to meet their financial obligations and lower their rates, it doesn't seem fair to those of us who are locked in at higher rates with few options. The costs to refinance is what's got this country into a mess, is it fair to those of us who make our obligations without defaulting? Yet why can't we take advantage of this bail out program that is helping those who should never have gotten approved in the first place?

Somewhere in this are multiple questions.

Has there been a documentary about the financial industry in this country?

Is greed really at the heart of the financial bail out now being considered?

Is the free market officially dead?

As a social studies teacher, your films provide nice snippets of reality for my students (particularly Jazz and The Civil War). If you could tackle an unexplored subject, which of the following would you most like to consider?

5 ideas from a history teacher:

1. The Industrial Revolution
2. The Cajuns
3. Hawaii
4. The Cold War
5. The Spanish-American War
5a. "American Empire"

Also, would you take on projects dealing with World History (i.e. the Mongols, the Venetians, Mansa Musa, or India)?

Thank you for your work.

David T.
Georgia

Mr. Burns, thank you for your body of work. It helps me explain to my 2 daughters the importance of documenting, preserving and passing on history.

I graduated from college the year before your birth. And now I feel as if I should have become a documentary filmmaker.
I have one question:

Can your organization help me take the leap (or small step) into documentaries? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have raw footage and photos for the following docs:
--My African American family history from slavery to the northern flight
-- Rural African American churches (their services have remained the same for over a 100 years.
-- Black High Schools: Rise, Fall, Disappearance.

Considering the current mess in the economy, i think it would be interesting to get some perspective on the issue. Let's say the 1960's and 70's.

1. What was the economic climate back then?
2. What actions/laws/taxes/regulations/etc were enacted to deal with it?
3. How were those plans of action structured?
4. What were the short, medium, and long term ramifications?
5. What are the similarities with the economic/tax plans proposed by both Barak Obama and John McCain?

The idea being, ok the candidates have proposed this and that - have we tried it before, did it work, and if so, would it work today?

I am writing to to suggest an idea for what you do best: documentaries. Here it is. The Trail of Tears, which began in 1831 and ended in 1838 with the removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma. With your focus on historical events, I am sure you know about this tragic event, one I consider to be the American equivalent of what Nazi Germany did to the Jews.

The Trail of Tears (a trail of tears and death) was the forced relocation of Native Americans (five tribes) from their homelands to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States. The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831. Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations.

In 1838, the Cherokee Nation was removed from their homeland in Georgia and put into concentration camps. After that they were removed to the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 4,000 Cherokees. In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Isunyi - "The Trail Where They Cried."

As Private John G. Burnett later wrote, "Future generations will read and condemn the act, and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter."

Mr. Burns, to my knowledge, nothing (at least nothing credible) has ever been done on this piece of American history. And since this event, the American Indians have continued to suffer - have been scourged, forced into reservations and isolated, and treated like a subspecies.

As you know, there is much more to this story of abuse of a people who, though they are the original and most ancient Americans, suffered and were forced out because they were in the way of the white man, who wanted for himself the valuable lands that for generations had been the homeland of the American Indian. Like Hitler with the Jews, what the white man really wanted was not only to remove but also to eliminate these Native Americans.

As with the veterans of The War, the number of Cherokees and Indians from other tribes who have a connection to and can tell their own stories about what really happened on The Trail of Tears is dying out. My father was one-quarter Cherokee (has passed away) and his brother now has possession of a trunk that has been in our family since before 1838, when it was brought west by our Cherokee ancestors on the Trail of Tears.

You are the one who could tell this story the way it should be told - and also understood. I hope this overlooked part of our history is something you would be interested in exploring as a future Ken Burns documentary.

Victoria Harris

I have one question for Mr. Burns:

The films that you are best known for are very long documentaries. Is this a format that is going to last into the next century? Budgets are smaller, mobile technology is on the rise. Are people going to continue to be interested in sitting down in their living rooms for a long-form documentary?

Thanks, and I hope this series continues!

I have two questions. 1) Why do you choose to show your films on PBS? There must be other networks willing to pay more. What is there about PBS that makes it a better venue for your work? and 2) How does the future of On-Demand and streaming Internet video effect your film making process and style? Thank you for your time.

Hi Ken -

How do the funding priorities of PBS or philanthropic foundations influence or inhibit the subject matter and treatment of documentary work?

What kinds of documentaries are excluded from PBS?

Do you think funders support a star system as opposed to encouraging a broader range of filmmakers? If so, why?

What changes would you recommend to make documentary film practice a more financially viable option in the U.S.

Do you agree with Gore Vidal's assessment of the nation as "The United States of Amnesia"?

Peace -

A number of producers have switched from film based content gathering and creation to various electronic technologies including tape and direct to disc cameras. What are your thoughts on this trend and what would it take for you to willingly move into the electronic realm?

What are the primary rules you would give to someone who would like to use still photographs in motion as you do so extensively in your documentaries?

For your national parks documentary, are you looking into the role played by peoples of Hispanic heritage in the discovery, creation and preservation of national parks? For starters, do you know, for example, that at least 11 national monuments or historic sites in the custody of the National Park Service are linked to Spanish exploration and settlement in the United States and one of its dependencies?
Would you be willing to meet with members of the Defend the Honor campaign to inform us of research you are conducting with this regard, how you intend to incorporate the Latino contribution, or whether you already have included reference to the Latino presence in the national parks movement?
What efforts have you made to include experts on Latino history (preferably of Hispanic origin), sociology, anthropology, and so on who can provide relevant material for the documentary?
Do you have any future documentaries in mind that will treat of Latino concerns and how do you intend to ensure historical accuracy and comprehensiveness in these projects?

Hi Ken -

As you're no doubt aware, the excessive cost of historical footage and photos can prevent historical documentaries from being produced. In the case of "At the River I Stand", (a fantastic piece on Martin Luther King Jr. and the Sanitation Workers strike in Memphis), this important film had to be pulled from distribution because the rights to archival footage had lapsed. There are scores of other examples.

What is your take on this problem?

What changes would you recommend in copyright law to eliminate the barriers to archival footage for filmmakers and the public?

Thanks -

Mr. Burns:

I am an independent documentary producer and a staff producer for WHUT Howard University Television (PBS) in Washington, DC. You and I have met on two occasions, one being when produced an interview with you for WHUT at the Lincoln during the screening of your film The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. I mentioned to you then that I follow your style of documentary filmmaking and that you were an idol.

I produced a documentary which received multiple awards and a regional Emmy Award for best in documentary, "Dance Party: The Teenarama Story". It was also selected into permanent collection at the Paley Media Center in NYC and Los Angeles.

I know this isn't part of the 5 question outline, but

1. How can I personnally get a copy to you for your viewing?

But here's my 2nd question and last question.

2. What is your method of dealing with the use of photographs in a documentary which has little to no footage on the subject of the documentary.

Ken,
I will be attending the 145th anniversary celebration of the Gettysburg address, where you are scheduled to give a speech. My wife and I are looking forward to the event very much. I was wondering if you could somehow convince (I know that's not as easy as I make it sound)President-elect Obama that it would be altogether fitting and proper that he, as the first African American to be elected to the office of the Presidency, should try to attend. If any place deserves a visit from our first Black President, it's the town of Gettysburg. And it's silent audience. I really believe that it would symbolize the fulfillment of the promise of this country. The completion of the circle. I think it would be wonderful. Please try. Thanks.

As an aspiring film maker, I was wondering if there are any exciting technologies that you feel will change the way that content is recorded or created. Is there anything new that excites you or are you sticking with traditional methods?

Thanks.