The Ken Burns Effect: Bringing Photos to Life

Filmmaker Ken Burns is known for his documentary series on PBS, including The War, National Parks, Baseball, and numerous others. Burns signature style includes camera movements across photographs, including pan and zoom moves. This method is a great tool for filmmakers, helping to bring life to a two dimensional still image. Learn how to bring photos to life in your video productions following in the footsteps of this great documentary master.

In this class you will create a short documentary video sequence (1 minute in length) with the provided photographs utilizing the Ken Burns effect in your editing process. I will be using Adobe software products for this course, specifically Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop. However, the fundamental skills discussed in this course can be executed in any video editing program. A very basic understanding of video editing is helpful, but not required for this class.

The assignment will teach you how to bring photographs to life through composition, framing, and movement. You will develop a better understanding of cinematography, video editing, and storytelling.

The subject matter for the short documentary sequence is JFK’s moon speech. Photographs are provided, as well as an audio narration for you to edit with. You don’t need to edit the audio narration, only the photographs.

• Intro
• Resolution and Pixels
• Setting up your Project
• Framing, Composition and Movement
• Basic Animation and Keyframing
• Writing the Script
• Editing Your Sequence
• Export and Share
• Final Thoughts