On September 16th 2009, World-Famous Documentary Filmmaker Ken Burns took a break in the middle of an intense promotional tour for his new film on America’s national parks to stop by Flashpoint Academy and meet privately with a handful of our film students, staff and faculty. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the kind of meeting that will surely inspire our students during their time at Flashpoint and well beyond.

The students, many of which were first year students, engaged Mr. Burns with a number of compelling questions ranging from why he chooses the subject matter that he does to how his career has been different because he resides in New Hampshire.

As busy and pressed-for-time that he was, Mr. Burns carefully and articulately explained the origins of “making the still photograph come alive”, explaining that his father had a darkroom in the basement as he was growing up and seeing the photo emerge through the chemicals fascinated him. This process, of course, has come to be known as “the Ken Burns Effect”, a popular name for a type of pan-and-scan effect used in video production from still imagery.

Mr. Burns said he was impressed with Flashpoint gleefully exclaiming “I want to come here!” He enthusiastically explained that his latest documentary odyssey, The National Parks, has been in production for a decade, a topic he has always wanted to explore due to his fond boyhood memories of Shenandoah State Park in Virginia.

The National Parks will air on PBS beginning September 27th.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Tribeca Flashpoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.