Ken Burns & PBS present "National Parks" in September

[Frank W. Baker]

If you haven't already heard about it, you will, I promise. Anything Ken Burns does has a tremendous amount of outreach and promotion and National Parks, premiering September 27 is no different. Be sure to go to the website for a sneak peek at the series and there is a short essay by Burns in the current issue of National Geographic's Adventures magazine.

[Alan Teasley]

Thanks for the heads up, Frank. I really admire Mr. Burns's work, and I look forward to this series. One thing I'm dying to ask him, should I ever meet him, is "How does it feel to be an adjective and a verb?" Ever since I started working with iPhoto slideshows and now iMovie, I've been amused by the "automatic Ken Burns effect" and by being prompted as to whether I wanted to "Ken Burns" that transition. This is certainly a tribute to (or perhaps a satire of?) his signature style of panning and dollying in on photos. I wonder about the degree to which he was involved in having his name used in this way.

And, although I generally don't mind the technique, I really don't like it when it's applied to the work of a photographer. I had to walk out of a documentary on Ansel Adams (not directed by Ken Burns) because you never got to see a whole photograph in its original aspect. The film technique actually destroyed the photos, in my opinion, by cutting them up and isolating small parts. The original composition was lost. I hope Mr. Burns doesn't show any of Ansel Adams's photos when he profiles Yosemite National Park. I fear I will yip!

Can you, or any others on the thread, think of another filmmaker who has become a verb?

Alan

[Frank W. Baker]

how about Hitchcockian?
See this wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchcockian

Frank