Kenneth Lauren Burns was born on the 29th July 1953, in Brooklyn, New York City USA, and is a film director and producer, probably best recognized for directing and producing documentary films, such as “The Civil War” (1990), “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” (2009), “Prohibition” (2011) and “The Roosevelts” (2014). He has been an active member of the film industry since 1981.
So, have you ever wondered how rich Ken Burns is? It has been estimated by authoritative sources that the total size of Ken’s net worth is over $1.5 million as of mid-2016. Most of his income is the result of his successful involvement in the entertainment industry as a filmmaker – director and producer.
Ken Burns Net Worth $1.5 Million
Ken Burns was born to Robert Kyle Burns, who worked as a cultural anthropologist, and Lyla Smith Burns, who was a bio-technical worker; his brother is Ric Burns, who works also as a filmmaker of the documentary films. His family moved frequently, so he spent his childhood in France, and Ann Arbor among other places, where his father worked as a professor. Bright and talented he carried his love for making movies through his high school years, when he received a movie camera for his 17th birthday. Upon matriculation from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor in 1971, he enrolled at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts; some of his professors were photographers Elaine Mayes and Jerome Liebling. He graduated with a BA degree in Film Studies and Design in 1975.
Subsequently, his professional career began when Ken founded the production company Florentine Films in 1975, together with Elaine Mayes classmate Robert Sherman, based in Walpole, New Hampshire. Since then, his career has gone only upwards, and so has his net worth, as well as popularity. Parallel with working at his own company, Ken has worked as a cinematographer for numerous television channels, including the BBC channel, Italian television, and others.
In 1977, Ken began working on his first documentary film – “Brooklyn Bridge” – which was an adaptation of a book named “The Great Bridge”, by David McCullough. The film was released in 1981, and was nominated for an Academy Award in the category for Best Documentary, increasing his net worth by a large margin. The film was followed by other documentaries, such as “The Shakers: Hands To Work, Hearts To God” (1984), and “The Statue Of Liberty” (1985), which was also nominated for Oscar.
At the beginning of the next decade he created the documentary miniseries “The Civil War”, based on the American Civil War, which achieved huge ratings. His next big work was the TV series “Baseball” (1994), for which he won an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Informational Series. Two years later, he was the executive producer of the film “The West”, directed by Stephen Ives, which also contributed a lot to his net worth.
Furthermore, he also won an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Non-fiction Series, for directing and producing his next film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”. Most recently, he has created such films as “The Dust Bowl”, and “The Central Park Five”, both released in 2012, and “The Roosevelts” (2014), and “Cancer: The Emperor Of All Maladies” (2016). “The Vietnam War” will be released in 2017, and will likely further increase his net worth.
Speaking about his personal life, Ken Burns has been married to Julie Deborah Brown since 2003; the couple has two daughters. Previously, he was married to Amy Stechler (1982-1993), with whom he also has two daughters. His current residence is in Walpole, New Hampshire.
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-fiction Series, Lincoln Prize, Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series, Grammy Award for...
Nominations
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography For Nonfiction Programming, News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Programming – Long Form, News & Documentary Emmy Award for Bes...
Movies
The Roosevelts, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, Jackie Robinson, The Dust Bowl, The Central Park Five, The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, Unforgivable Blackness, Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip, Huey Long, The Congress...
TV Shows
Prohibition, Baseball: The Tenth Inning, Baseball, The Civil War, The Simpsons
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Trademark
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The slow zoom in or out, and/or pan right or left has been called "The Ken Burns Effect" due to his powerful use of this technique. While not developed by him, it has been included in iMovie and iPhoto by Apple Computers with the name "Ken Burns Effect"
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Takes a single photograph or painting, and utilizes close ups, music, voice overs and sound effects to make it seem like a lengthy action sequence.
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Quote
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I can look at a still photograph of building the Brooklyn Bridge and hear the workers hammering, the seagulls in the East River, the steam compressors hauling up big blocks of stone. You take an old photograph and you realize it has a past, it has a future. So what would it mean to go inside it?
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[on the cinematic shooting of still photography] That's the DNA for everything I've done for the past thirty-five years. That attempt to look at a photograph and see time. To hear movement and sound, then search for the close-up, a tilt, a pan, a reveal. To create what the auteurs called 'mise en scene'. I wanted to be one of those auteurs when I was growing up, and abandoned it for the sheer power of fact.
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In so many films that I've done, short-sightedness is one of the major human themes. We live for the moment. No one's willing to do the necessary rolling up the sleeves until the catastrophe happens.
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[on the plowing up of the Great Plains and resultant dust bowl years] The old ranchers were saying 'Wrong side up'. The Indians knew it was not right, that these buffalo grasses sent their roots five feet down to suck the moisture, but also hold the topsoil evolved over thousands of years. All of a sudden we were turning over that grass in an area larger than Ohio, and this was a marginal area anyway. This was the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history so far.
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Fact
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Grand Marshal, Tournament of Roses Parade. [2016]
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Burns' great-great-grandfather Abraham W. Burns (1833-1911) was a private in McClanahan's Company, Virginia Horse Artillery also known as the Staunton Artillery (Confederate) during the American Civil War. He also served in Company K,52nd Virginia Infantry.
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Attended Ann Arbor Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, vol. 136, pages 59-67. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
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Father, Robert Burns, was a cultural anthropologist
$1.5 Million
