I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.
Ken BurnsRead
When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that the process of filmmaking involves extensive effort and time, and not every moment captured is inferior; rather, it's part of the creative journey.
Ken Burns highlights the extensive labor and material that goes into documentary filmmaking, suggesting that the disparity between shooting and finished footage reflects the complexity of storytelling rather than a qualitative judgment of the unedited content. He reassures that the hours not included in the final edit are still valuable and contribute to the overall narrative, indicating that significant work often goes unnoticed in the final product.
Themes
FilmmakingDocumentaryCreative ProcessTimeEffort
In practice
Example use cases
In a talk about creativity, one might cite this quote to illustrate the importance of patience and persistence.
More from Ken Burns
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Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.
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You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time.
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