Archived from Monday, September 28, 2009
Paul Barnes, Editor of the documentary series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," joins us for a live chat. Ask the award winning editor about his role in the project, as well as his extensive professional career.
Archived Chat
Hello and welcome to the Engage Live Chat series. Today we welcome Paul Barnes, Editor of "The National Parks: America's Best Idea." Thanks for joining us Paul. Let's get started with the first question.
@JAlanGrey from Twitter:
What made you want to document the National Parks & how many miles did you travel?
Paul Barnes:
Since I was a teenager I always wanted to visit as many of the national Parks as possible and also became very interested in the environmental movement in the late 60's and 70's so it was a natural for me to get involved in this project. I was a producer on the Yosemite segments of the series as well as editing and got to travel to California for 3 spectacular visits and since we were making the film had the privilege of getting private tours from a wonderful ranger named Deb it was a great experience for me.
Shannon, Bellevue, WA:
How many hours of footage did you start with?
Paul Barnes:
I don't know exactly but it was a lot. We estimated we used about one third of what was shot and two-thirds got left out. But we had hours and hours of beautiful footage. That was one reason Dayton and Ken decided to produce some of those DVD extras to utilize shots we loved that didn't make the cut.
Roberta Bailey, via Facebook:
You are very successful at creating a sense of movement even when you use archival stills. How do you decide the timing of this movement?
Paul Barnes:
The moves are always timed and are very deliberate. They most often are timed to cues in the text - a zoom will start on a certain word and will end at a certain phrase. Sometimes the timing is set to a musical phrase. But most often the text. It's all a part of why Ken's style works so well. Now of these choices are random but the moves are meant to provide a certain emphasis to the meaning of the text.
Dan, Knoxville, TN:
Can you talk a little bit about your role as the editor in the creation of National Parks film and what an editor generally does?
Paul Barnes:
Ken is very generous with his editors allowing us a first cut on every scene. Then we screen it for him and he reacts and provides us with notes for changes. We go through this for every draft of the script. He also allows us first choice on music, but if he doesn't like it we change it. At this point we have all worked with him so long that we know his taste very well and he knows and trusts our choices. But it is always a very fruitful back and forth between us. Of course he's the director and has the final say, but part of being a good director is recognizing when your collaborators bring something good to the project making the decision to keep it. Or as Teddy Roosevelt says, "Leave it as it is".
Phil Lozen, Milan, MI:
What was the film was shot on, and what went to PBS was (1080i, 720p) for the HD broadcast? *
Paul Barnes:
They film was shot on super 16 and was then transferred to digital files and color corrected and outputted on an HD 1080i Master for Broadcast.
Leigh, NY, NY:
In your opinion, has the transition to the digital editing room impacted visual aspects or the style of a Ken Burns film?
Paul Barnes:
I don't htink it impacted style at all. It impacted speed and ease of editing but not really how we edit. It provided easy tool sfor us to creat moves on the Avid, to actually see how dissolves and fades and titles look and work and to color correct and sound mix a bit all of which made the screenings look more like a final version of the film but I don't think digital editing added anything new to our actual editing grammar.
Jonathan, Portland, OR:
What's your favorite park, and why is that so?
Paul Barnes:
Canyonlands. Because no one ever goes there, it's spectacularly beautiful, peaceful, mysterious and there's something in my soul that is so attracted to the Southwest. I think I'm meant to live there at some point in my life, which is my goal when I retire.
Lou, Crystal City, VA:
What parks just missed the cut to be featured? Was it tough to narrow down to the footage you used?
Paul Barnes:
It was tough because every park has a story to tell. Capitol Reef for example or Canyon de Chelly - two personal favorites that are only mentioned. But we had to make tough choices otherwise the series would be twice as long and already every critic across the country with zero attention span has been complaining about the series length.
@greenguychicago, via Twitter:
Paul, what do you think the biggest challenge is to the continued existence of our beautiful parks, and what should we do to overcome?
Paul Barnes:
Overcrowding is the most serious problem I think. Serious consideration needs to be given to not allowing cars into the parks themselves and to devise ways to have people park outside and be bussed in.
Beyond that the infrastructure of the parks and preservation of eco-systems in the parks needs serious funding. The whole system is woefully under-funded.
Call your Congressmen and ask them to release more funds for upkeep and for innovative programs for preservation. The Parks need your voice to protect and preserve them.
Beyond that the infrastructure of the parks and preservation of eco-systems in the parks needs serious funding. The whole system is woefully under-funded.
Call your Congressmen and ask them to release more funds for upkeep and for innovative programs for preservation. The Parks need your voice to protect and preserve them.
Jess, Washington, DC:
What did you find were the best times of day to shoot? Did it depend on the region/park?
Paul Barnes:
We love magic hour, that late afternoon light passing into dusk that creates that wonderful warm light on anything. Dawn would be second choice. Beyond that mist, storms lots of clouds and atmospherics in the sky.
Our least favorite times are broad daylight with totally blue skies but with no clouds. As pretty as that may be sometimes, it can't compete with magic hour light.
Our least favorite times are broad daylight with totally blue skies but with no clouds. As pretty as that may be sometimes, it can't compete with magic hour light.
John, Missoula, MT:
How important in this film, if at all, was the impact of climate change on national parks?
Paul Barnes:
Though we don't deal with the issue specifically in the film, I believe it's in there implicitly. You cannot deal with any environmental issue these days without it being somewhere thought about even in the background.
Tony Farley, CA:
I'm wondering why it was decided to color grade the video the way you did.
Paul Barnes:
WE tried to be true to the light as it was shot, but in some instances we did emphasize certain aspects of a shot, making it just a bit warmer, or bringing out a pink tone in a sunset. Or if we had an area of a shot that wasn't as good looking darkening that area to blend better. But for the most part we tried to color correct everything to look as we remembered it when we shot it.
Lynn Wilson, via Facebook:
Phenomenal. I hope someone makes it possible for all children in grammar school to see this series.
Paul Barnes:
All of our projects are released with an education component built into its delivery to the public. I'm not in charge of that aspect so if you call PBS or check the Website you should be able to get some information about the educational component. All of our films are widely used in middle schools, high schools and colleges. Many are designed so that 15 or 20 minute sequences can be screened and discussed in a normal classroom time. We love the fact that schools use them constantly.We still receive letters from kids who've seen The Civil War in their history classes and learned so much from them. It's very gratifying for us.
Lisa Gensheimer, North East, PA:
Beautiful storyline and footage. I am puzzled by the on-camera interview with writer/co-producer Dayton Duncan. Why did you use the writer as a source?
Paul Barnes:
This was Dayton's baby. He brought the project to Ken because of his own deep love for the National Parks and because he wanted this story to be told. No one we talked to knew so much about all the Parks in such a broad sense and could speak about it as passionately as Dayton. Though not a trained historian he's certainly a very gifted amateur and we felt spoke beautifully and ardently about the subject. It just seemed natural to make him and integral part of the film.
Scott, Northampton MA:
Do you only edit for Ken Burns or do you work for other directors as well?
Paul Barnes:
As of now, I only work for Ken and have been exclusive to him since 1991. Before that I freelanced in NYC working for Errol Morris on "The Thin Blue Line," Ken's brother Ric on his Coney Island, a wonderful film on gospel singers called "Say Amen Somebody" and George Butler's "Pumping Iron II: The Women," among many others.
Kamalesh, LA, CA:
Why did you end at 1980? Another episode to 2008/9, would've been informative.
Paul Barnes:
We had to stop someplace or else we'd go on ad infinitum. It seemed to us the last big dramatic moment in the Parks history was the great push to create the Alaska Parks as Muir said "the last chance to get it right", so we decided that that would be our dramatic cut off point. And as an editor it made perfect sense to me.
Daniel, Keene, NH:
How did it feel to finally see your years of work on TV along with the rest of the nation?
Paul Barnes:
To be honest it always a bit anti-climactic. We work so long and so hard on these and see them thousands of times over and over that it's hard to be totally enthusiastic about seeing it yet again. BUT I do always think of the those virgin viewers out there and I do hope that they are loving it as much as I do. So it's a mixed reaction, but I do love hearing the public reactions right afterward.
Thank you for joining us today Paul. Thanks to the audience for participating. Feel free to continue the conversation in the archived chat section. Simply click refresh on your browser.
Starred (*) questions have been edited by PBS editors for brevity and/or clarity. The original, unedited question can be found to the right under Audience Questions.
Canyonlands
My goodness, I am so happy to hear someone else loved the Canyon lands National Park too. I loved it the first time I saw it. And that was in 1963. We also saw Arches that year and then it was called a national monument. We camped up there with two of our children in a tent. Wind storm came up and we had red dust all over everything by the time. Marjean Klotz
Canyonlands national Park
I left some thing off of my letter, we went on to Yellowstone after Arches.
Marjean Klotz
Canyonlands is Gorgeous
I visited/camped in Canyonlands also and was verrry impressed. However, as I learned all too well, rain in one Canyon, can mean 6ft of snow only miles away in the next Canyon in November.It was one of those "learn as you go" things. I still have fond memories of exploring that place. I can absolutely see why you think you were meant to retire there. It calls to you. Only by walking and hiking it though, can you get the full effect it can have on your spirit.
Thank You so much for doing this and bringing back great exploration and adventurous times of people past and present.
Two further questions
Congrats on such a well done documentary. Two further questions were brought to mind for me.
1) What important places in the US missed out on becoming national parks? I was struck by the struggle to create Smokey Mountain National Park and how many thousands were displaced in the process. I know that decades ago, there was an effort to make Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada a national park, but it was too populated and developed for that to get much momentum. What other places?
2) What about re-introduction of other indigenous species back into parks where they had been eliminated? I was struck by the information on how wolves had been eliminated in so many parks, not just Yellowstone (essentially everywhere outside of Alaska). But what about other native species like grizzlies in the Sierra Nevada? Since the 1920s, the only grizzly in California is on the state flag ironically enough.
The California Zephyr
Amtrak's California Zephyr, particularly the Denver-SLC section should qualify as a National Park. For the person who may be elderly or disabled and may not be able to get around in a park, a trip on the CZ is the next best thing.
Post Your Comment About the Chat
We reserve the right to remove posts that don't follow these guidelines. By submitting comments, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.