Ken Burns effect

The Ken Burns Effect, made famous by American documentarian Ken Burns, refers to a technique of embedding still photographs in motion pictures, displayed with slow zooming and panning effects, and fading transitions between them.

In his documentaries, Burns often used this technique to give life to still photographs by slowly zooming in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another. For example, in a photograph of a baseball team, he might slowly pan across the faces of the players and come to a rest on the player the narrator is discussing. This has been called the Ken Burns effect.

The effect can be used as a transition between clips as well. For example, to segue from one person in the story to another, he might open a clip with a close-up of one person in a photo, then zoom out so that another person in the photo becomes visible. This is especially practicable when covering older subjects where there is little or no available film. The zooming and panning across photographs gives the feeling of motion, and keeps the viewer visually entertained.

This technique has become a staple of documentaries, slide shows, presentations, and even screen savers. In film editing, non-linear editing systems such as iMovie and iPhoto (from Apple Inc., which also uses this effect for most of its screensavers) often include an effect or transition called Ken Burns Effect, with which a still image may be incorporated into a film using this kind of slow pan and zoom. Apple TV also has a photo slideshow option labeled "Ken Burns Effect". Also Apple's photo editing program iPhoto, allows users to add the "Ken Burns Effect" to their slideshow before they are about to play it.

On the Windows platform, Windows MovieMaker and Sony Vegas Studio (and Movie) also have the Ken Burns Effect built in. It is also seen in screensavers that slowly pan and zoom through a slide show of digital photographs stored on a computer's hard disk.

The effect has even been implemented by Nokia in their N73 smartphone, applied to the slideshows the phone creates from the pictures stored in it. [1]

The term has also been used less formally to refer to a person who gains an increased degree of celebrity after appearing in a Burns documentary. Such people include Shelby Foote and Buck O'Neil.

The technique was also used in Triumph into Tragedy: The Manhattan Project

Origins of the technique

Mr. Burns was not the first documentary film maker to develop the pan and zoom techniques. The British Broadcasting Corporation's ground-breaking documentary series The Great War first shown in 1964 used both extensively.

However, it is certainly true that the availability of film footage depicting The Great War, though much of it is unverified and may be shot after the war, meant that this earlier documentary series did not have to rely to the same extent on creating a sense of movement from photographs and paintings thus the technique is not as prominent.