Ken Burns Fangirling

This morning BYU was privileged to hear from one Ken Burns at our university forum. Burns is an renown, award-winning documentary film director of such series as The Civil War; Baseball; and Jazz, as well as smaller films on Mark Twain, the Brooklyn Bridge, Thomas Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark.


Here's where I shine my true nerd-tastic colors.

His address was so absolutely phenomenal. I wish there was a Ken Burns School of Writing and Public Speaking (emphasis on the writing part). He mostly discussed his newest venture, The War, which is a 14.5 hour, 7-part series about World War II-- but he tied it in with his other films and with current situations, ways of thinking, and misconceptions about war in general and the unity (or lack thereof) as an American people.

And THEN he showed us the introduction to the new series that doesn't premiere until September. I was so happy. They actually didn't broadcast this particular forum for copyrighting purposes. I'm so absolutely intrigued to watch it when it comes out. He concluded with a trailer of sorts, featuring clips from the film scored by the "theme song," a positively lovely song called American Anthem recorded by Norah Jones. It was so moving and...it makes me all sorts of excited.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ON THE WAR