Ken Burns: preference

Transcript context

…How much of your time do you have to put into managing content, distribution, marketing — things other than actually making the documentaries? I do a lot. I’d say first and foremost, the thing that I complain about a lot but I don’t really mind is the fundraising. It’s just — it’s hard. We get it from a variety: individuals of wealth; corporations — Bank of America has supported us for over 16 years — the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; government granting agencies; foundations — Arthur Vining Davis, Park Foundation — folks like that. Individuals have funded us: David Rubenstein, the patriotic philanthropist; Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine from Boston, who have contributed more than anyone to our work over the years and created a prize in my name with the Library of Congress that funds other documentary filmmakers having the hard time that we all do with that last final $200,000 to finish the film, to pay the rights for the photographs that we were talking about. PBS: I made my decision; I’m happy with that decision, but they don’t have the marketing budgets and the ad budgets to do that. So it’s shoe leather. Whether it’s going to 21 cities on a jazz tour, all in succession, or traveling all across the country, it’s tough but you do it and you feel like a politician with a stump speech that you give five or six times a day and you meet with the local PBS station for lunch and they’re big donors. You go to the local editorial board of the newspaper. You go on TV. You talk to reporters. You do an evening event with the public. Then you move on to the next city and hope that you’ve gotten some interest piqued among people in a media environment with literally, now with the internet, millions of options. How do you stand out and distinguish? It’s part of it. I would say the three things I love the most are shooting — when you see something, either live or an old photograph or even in an interview, where you go, “Man, this is going to be in the film; I know it. ” Then when you’re editing (because nothing edits itself), where you rewrite something or you’ve switched something around or you found a new way to tell it — there’s an exhilaration. Then, finally, the question you asked — is I like the evangelical part. I love the fact that once we’re done with a film, it’s in a way no longer ours: it’s yours. I want to go out and be that preacher who’s converting, not the congregation or the choir, but going out and trying to get new converts to say, “This is an important subject. I think we told this story in an interesting way. Do you agree? Here are some clips from it. Please watch when it’s on in September.” Let’s say you meet a young person and they want to become a major documentary maker. Other than just intelligence, hard work — what quality or qualities do you look for in that person to see if they can do it?…

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