Curation Makes the Difference: The Ken Burns App

Burns App
I admire Ken Burns for his storytelling and imagine him in my head a lot when it comes to digital storytelling. He transformed the way we think about still images with voice and music. But sitting through hours and hours worth of DVDs, even on subjects near to my heart like jazz and baseball, is something I just can’t do. (even though one of my neighbors is an editor with Burns and I feel guilt about not watching her work on a regular basis)

So I was intrigued when I saw the new Ken Burns App, and gave it a download. Here is what I was looking for: a curated collection of clips from various Ken Burns documentaries, culled and pulled together along various Big Ideas by Burns himself, with narrated introductions. I got all that, and more. The themes include art, politics, innovation and race, and while you only get one collection free (innovation), I ponied up the $9.99 for the rest because I just had to experience the Art collection (which mixes Billie Holiday with Frank Lloyd Wright with Woody Guthrie and more) and I am not regretting it. The experience is like a video mix tape, but with quality of storytelling and video production. I was hooked with the first segment.

The app is beautifully crafted, too, with a real feel for the way that touchscreens can be used to experience story. I suspect it will take me some time to get through all the collections, which is fine by me. I’m diving into the stories in order to learn more about America, and about filmmaking, and about digital curation. The Ken Burns App gives me plenty to chew on around all of those topics.

Peace (in the app),
Kevin

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