Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker and historian known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.
Burns in 2018
Burns speaks at the Library of Congress in 2019
Burns with the Peabody Award for The Central Park Five in 2014
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".
A 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" reflex camera – a popular entry-level camera used in film schools
The cover of Bolesław Matuszewski's 1898 book Une nouvelle source de l'histoire (A New Source of History), the first publication about documentary function of cinematography
Frame from one of Gheorghe Marinescu's science films (1899)
Geoffrey Malins with an aeroscope camera during World War I