Ken Burns' Civil War Documentary Reflection

The documentary was 5 discs ( 9 episodes) long, with each episode about an hour. Since we did not have 9 hours on our hands, we were not able the whole thing. We actually only watch half of it (4 hours).

I love the way Ken Burns produces his documentaries for KPBS. It was definitely too long for our purposes, but it was still very helpful and I really like the format. Because the American Civil War was the first really photographed war, he used many pictures of the soldiers, commanders and battles. These images were suplimented with video recordings of the battle fields as they look today, a few paintings and interviews, especially with a particular writer. For the most part, the information was narration, but there were also many quotes from Abraham Lincoln, to the wives of officers, to soldiers who had kept a diary. Burns also utilized music from the time as background. He played songs such as Batter Cy of Freedom, Dixie, Shanandoh, and Yankee Doodle.

In our documentary, I hope to use some of these styles. I'm pretty sure we're going to use the photogrphs from the war, and of the people. I would also like to play some of those songs. I think the narration should be similar (informational and engaging), and it probably will be, since I'm the writer.