Ken Burns: preference

Transcript context

…How should we improve intellectual property law for the reproduction of photographs? You must have incredible experience with it. Is it perfect, or could it be better? You know what? It’s imperfect, of course, as all things on this earth are. I suppose it could be — I have to see this, Tyler, from both sides of the equation, right? I’m forever searching. In The Civil War series alone, we got photographs from 163 different sources. One time it would just be one photograph from a single private individual. Sometimes you might spend 8 or 10 weeks at the Library of Congress filming off an easel the Mathew Brady collection. (He went bankrupt and Congress took pity on him and bought some of his negatives that began the beginning of their remarkable photographic stuff.) We’re always wanting — and thrilled when our government gives us access, essentially for free, or for a nominal reproduction cost if we’re ordering a photograph. And then other places can charge a huge amount and you want more access. At the same time, I am a filmmaker making things, and I have to survive on the selling of my images — and so one understands it. I think the protection of intellectual property rights is important, but at the same time, there’s got to be a moment where it moves into the public domain, and we have the ability to have a freer exchange. Because if you think about the huge costs — and I made two big series in succession on the Vietnam War and on country music, and the budgets were in the tens of millions for those films. They were many-episode series. But a lot of that was just rights: for music, for the music publishing, for the film of that music, but also the film itself or the still photographs, often in commercial houses. Millions of dollars of that budget went not to inflated executive salaries — you’re looking at him — but in fact to rights. We’d always love a much more inexpensive way. Then you begin to think that because of my track record and the ability — it’s never easy to raise money. Who’s not able to raise money? Who can’t tell the story that they want to tell? That’s, I think, a really important thing. PBS, I think, has been in the forefront of trying to figure out a way in which we can support those projects that would not heretofore in a completely unfettered marketplace be able to do it. They just wouldn’t be able to afford it. We’re excited about, recently, being able to hear stories that probably in another age wouldn’t be told because PBS has one foot in the marketplace, tentatively, and the other proudly out of it. And I think I’ve spent — not think; I have spent my entire professional life making films that will be shown on PBS because that is the condition that I need to give me the artistic independence: the time it takes to do these things. I could easily walk over to a premium cable channel or a streaming service and get the money I need to do The Vietnam War in maybe one conversation instead of 10 years of raising money, but they wouldn’t give me the 10 years to make the film. They’d want it in a couple of years. get the money I need to do The Vietnam War in maybe one conversation instead of 10 years of raising money, but they wouldn’t give me the 10 years to make the film. They’d want it in a couple of years. I wouldn’t be able to do the deep dives that I’m able to do because PBS sets a pick for me, if you will. There’s not a bunch of suits giving notes. It’s been another, I think, important decision that I made that was the right one. Staying in New Hampshire, living in the same house, sleeping in the same bedroom that I moved to 43 and a half years ago has made all the difference and has liberated me in a way that — maybe some of my colleagues have become richer. I’m not sure that — If you only measure richness by the bottom line, you’ve missed an important component of what you’re bringing up, too, which is intellectual freedom and artistic freedom, which I’ve been able to enjoy.…

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