Ken Burns on filmmaking: you can do it!

Ken Burns, who many consider among the greatest living documentary filmmakers  -- perhaps the greatest of all time – returned to Rowan Feb. 29 where, in two successive programs, he urged would-be documentarians, narrative filmmakers, virtually anyone with an inclination for a creative career, to, simply, go for it.

Burns, the writer/director/producer of such serialized documentary greats as The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Dust Bowl, The Roosevelts and many others said success in the film business, like success in any business, takes talent, drive, a willingness to sacrifice and a measure of luck, but those who are willing to commit and focus have a great chance of making it.

The filmmaker, who had been to campus twice before, most recently in 2012 at the behest of his friend, TV critic and Radio, Television & Film Prof. David Bianculli, returned for a special President’s Lecture Series event and to speak with students in Prof. Richard Grupenhoff’s The Movie Industry class.

“When I graduated from Hampshire College in 1975 I naively started my own film company” and began making movies, Burns told the class.

But Burns, then in his early 20s, said he was forced to move from a New York City apartment when rent was suddenly raised to over $300. He relocated to rural New Hampshire where he could live more cheaply and continue work on his first big project, Brooklyn Bridge.

Burns finished editing that film in a tiny cabin heated only by a wood stove.

“It was so cold in that cabin that the film would literally snap in our hands,” Burns recalled.

The film, the first of many Burns projects to be broadcast on PBS, sat unsold for several years but eventually found both a buyer and success. It was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for feature length documentary, the first of two nominations Burns would receive.

“A film is a million problems, and that’s no exaggeration,” he said. “The thing I like best is when it’s at its worst I know what to do, moving forward and making the film better.”

Burns urged students to find passion projects and to tell stories they care about. His films, which have sprung almost exclusively from his love of America and American history, often meld still and moving pictures, live interviews and narration, the “voice of God” that he tries to soften by peppering his storytelling with a variety of narrators.

Interviewing Burns on stage in Pfleeger Hall for the President’s Lecture Series event, Bianculli said the quality and quantity of Burns' creative output – some 30 or more films since 1982, some over 10 hours long – leaves him spellbound.

“As a TV critic I marveled at this guy,” Bianculli said. “He does it time and time again.”

The program included a brief video retrospective of Burns’ work followed by a question and answer session in which the filmmaker said his main goal is always to tell a good story.

“The laws of storytelling are the same for my friend Steven Spielberg as they are for me,” Burns said. “The difference is, I can’t make stuff up.”

Taking a student’s question about whether Burns would ever make a “director’s cut” DVD, one that includes not just the finished film but extras that didn’t make it in, Burns said he never would.

“The cutting room floor is often full of really great stuff. It just didn’t work in telling the story,” he said. “Up in New Hampshire we make maple syrup and it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Well, that’s exactly what we do with film. What you see is my director’s cut.”

Burns, who recently finished a two-part film on the life of Jackie Robinson, is finishing a ten-part history of the Vietnam War for release in 2017. He’s also working on a multi-part chronicle of country music for 2018 and a two-part film about the life of Ernest Hemingway for 2019. He has additional film projects committed to PBS through 2030.