[78-L] "Prohibition" DVD

[Michael Biel]

This is further proof why you can't trust wikipedia nor Ken Burns to be
historically correct.  This is bull about people believing that Ken
Burns invented the rostrum camera effect -- it dates back at least to
the 1950s.  It was a major part of Donald Hyatt's NBC Project XX
(Project Twenty) documentary series, starting with "Meet Mr. Lincoln". 
Look at this 1961 Time magazine article to see that they are describing
just what Ken Burns is being touted for.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,874343,00.html

<< The great advantage of Hyatt's technique, as he demonstrated in last
week's The Real West, is that it allows time for thought. Says he: "You
can stop and pick out things. You can look deep in someone's eyes and
say what he said." Aided by Gary Cooper's relaxed narration of a fine
script, the program looked deep into the eyes of settlers, cowboys.
Indians, Westerners of all conditions. With sure irony, it demolished
the legends perpetuated on endless TV westerns as it showed the fabled
desperadoes as greasy punks, the heroic sheriffs as smalltime
officeholders, and the beautiful dance-hall girls a lot uglier than sin.
It recalled the West's real life as well as its real death; one
memorable picture showed a corpse so riddled with bullets that it
looked—making the Bat Masterson kind of tough talk come true—like a
sieve. Ranging over more than 300 still pictures, the TV camera showed
the hardships of the "unmarried, unchurched, and unwashed'' miners, the
dust and sweat of the cattle drives, the tragedy of the Indians, who
fell, inevitably, to the restless, driving people that had lassoed the
future.>>

One thing the Wiki articled did do was actually mention that Burns has
given credit for the inspiration of his technique to two 1957 Canadian
TV films:  "Burns has credited documentary filmmaker Jerome Liebling for
teaching him how still photographs could be incorporated into
documentary films. He has also cited the 1957 National Film Board of
Canada documentary City of Gold, co-directed by Colin Low and Wolf
Koenig, as a source of inspiration for this technique.  Winner of the
Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for an Academy
Award,[6] City of Gold used animation camera techniques to slowly pan
and zoom across archival still pictures of Canada's Klondike Gold Rush."

Why does Burns get credit in the general public for doing things that
were done 40 years before he started?????

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  



> > From: p.schow at comcast.net
> > To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> > Subject: Re: [78-L] "Prohibition" DVD
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 07, 2011 at 07:51:44AM -0700, Cary Ginell wrote:
> > >
> > > There's plenty to attack Burns on - none intended towards you, Jeff!
> > >
> > > Early this year, my son showed me the program iMovie, which he taught
> me
> > > how to use so I could put together a photo montage for his Eagle Court
> > > ceremony. On the effects toolbar, they have something that enables you
> > > to randomly pan or zoom in on a still photograph. It is called
> > > the "Ken Burns Effect." Can you believe this? He probably got a royalty
> > > for licensing something in his name that has been in existence since
> > > documentaries were first produced. I call that arrogant.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Burns_effect
> >
> > I would not be in a rush to criticize KB over this. Sounds like it
> > was Apple who came up with the idea and from the article above, KB
> > acknowledges his influences. Remember that his "Civil War" documentary
> > in 1990 was immensely popular and made the cover of Newsweek despite only
> > showing photographs and talking heads. Many thought such a format
> > would not succeed in the modern age. And yes, he pretty much stuck
> > with the same format 21 years later with "Prohibition".
> >
> > No idea about royalties but I wouldn't be surprised if Steve Jobs
> > made a donation to KB's foundation.