Ken Burns Hates Being Considered a Brand, Unless It Convinces People to See His New Doc, 'The Vietnam War'

For four decades, Ken Burns has reigned as the king of documentary filmmakers, with an unparalleled resume that includes Baseball, The Civil War, The Central Park Five and Jazz. Now he’s unveiling another masterpiece that ranks with the best of them: The Vietnam War, a 10-part, 18-hour film he co-directed with Lynn Novick, which premieres Sunday night on PBS. (Episodes air Sunday through Thursday at 8 p.m., for the next two weeks.) While the TV industry has changed dramatically, Burns has not: The prolific documentary filmmaker—who has lined up projects through 2030—remains steadfastly devoted to public television and turns down all advertising offers. One of his only brand partnerships is with Bank of America, which has underwritten many of his major projects since 2008 (including The War and National Parks) and is sponsoring several promotional events around The Vietnam War. Burns, and his co-director Novick, spoke with Adweek about why he hates being considered a brand, why he’ll never work for HBO or Netflix and why brands should stop trying to ask him to make their ads. Adweek: You’ve said that the idea of the “Ken Burns brand” makes you uncomfortable, but it’s something that many people embrace. Ken Burns: Look, I get it. And if PBS Video as they distribute this stuff want to aggregate all of the films that I’ve made under one page, that’s the acknowledgment of a brand. Because we exist with one foot tentatively in the marketplace and the other proudly out, it’s nothing we ever think about or talk about in any way, shape or form as we set about making and are finishing a film. So it does become a little bit of a disconnect when people talk about it, but we’re not unmindful of the fact that despite its existence at home on public television, this will go into a marketplace, it will be available as DVDs and Blu-rays and a companion book and a soundtrack and all that sort of stuff. [kickout id="2"] I think the more important thing is the trust connected with the brand. I’m less interested in the fact that there may or may not be a brand, than I am with the fact that people do trust us. And on something as radioactive as Vietnam, I’m thrilled that people have extended to us so far an enormous amount of trust to try to do this right and to take a controversial subject, but not make a controversial film. Since you started making The Vietnam War in 2006, the entire TV industry has turned upside down. Back then, there were no streaming services, no Peak TV… Burns: Oh, we knew it was coming! The industry has changed so much, but has anything changed at all with your process? Burns: No. We have discussions about streaming, which we would have never have had before, but there’s a variety of factors: old age on my part, the fact that most of the production takes place in Walpole, New Hampshire, and the fact that we know that we live in a world in which the technological tail often wags the dog, and we don’t want that to happen. So we’ve put ourselves in a position in which we are not susceptible to the kinds of seductions that these new technologies offer in terms of elaborate credit sequences or this, that or the other thing, that often distract you from content. We are really just interested in content, and if we have to draw a red line under The Vietnam War [in the logo] we’ll do that, but that’s about it. [kickout id="3"] Lynn Novick: The one thing that the streaming and the access has made possible, which is exciting and interesting, is bingeing. We make a lot a films, like when The Civil War was on, Ken and PBS put it on over one week, and you had to watch it when it was on. It was appointment television and built an audience over every night and was sort of part of the zeitgeist. But now we have a different landscape, in that people will do that again with this, but the first five episodes are going to be streaming on the first day. And there are people who are going to watch all 10 hours in one day, God bless them! So it gives the viewers a chance to watch it any way they want. Burns: But that doesn’t influence how we make it. Ken, you’re not at all tempted to see what it would be like to do something for HBO or Netflix? Burns: [shaking his head] I’m very, very good friends with [HBO chairman and CEO] Richard Plepler. I adore the man. He’s seen this, and he says it’s the best thing that will ever be on TV, which is a very kind compliment that I made sure he was willing to share, given the fact that he’s the head of another network. But it wouldn’t have happened. They have one of the greatest documentary units ever, led by Sheila Nevins, but they would not have devoted 10 years and the amount of money necessary to do this. And that’s where public television comes in, and that’s really important. There’s nothing [else] in the marketplace that’s happy about us using the number of people involved, the amount of time we spend engaged with the story of the Vietnam War. And what would that get us? PBS on average has a bigger audience than HBO on any given moment. Novick: Also, philosophically, you don’t have to pay for it [on PBS]. It’s free and available to everybody. And the work that goes into it, it really is philosophically important to us that anyone can watch it. You don’t have to have cable; you can just get it on the rabbit ears. [kickout id="5"] How many projects are you working on right now? Burns: I’m going home to continue working on an eight-part, 16-and-a-half hour series on the history of country music, which I’m halfway through editing. We’re two years away from broadcast. We’re working on a two-part, four-hour miniseries on the life of Ernest Hemingway. I’m finishing up a film on the history of the Mayo Clinic. I’ve set in motion a couple of projects that Lynn and [producer] Sarah [Botstein] are doing and I’m serving as the executive producer on a film about the Bard Prison Initiative, [which provides] higher education in prisons. Another team of ours is working on a film about the very complicated issues of public housing in the United States, using specific examples in Atlanta. And we are now in the process of blocking out in a preliminary fashion the 2020s that would involve a history of LBJ’s presidency, a history of crime and punishment, something on reconstruction, biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Winston Churchill, a history of invention and technology—and we’re already to 2030. You’ve been working with PBS for so many years. Are you your own best marketer at this point, or do you let the marketing team handle the campaigns? Burns: Look, we don’t have the resources that some places do, so we don’t care whether we’re the best or the worst part of their marketing thing, we’ve just got to do it. Shoe leather and multi-city tours and 18-hour days is part and parcel of every film that we do. But we also work with an extraordinarily talented marketing and promotional team and together we try to really think hard. Because these are long-term projects, we have the time to begin to design things, whether it’s the poster or a tagline or the promo that’s been running since Memorial Day, that is a super effective kind of summary of the entire 18 hours and 30 seconds. That’s what we do, and we love the people we work with. [kickout id="1"] Throughout your career, you’ve avoided doing any commercials or brand partnerships. Have you softened your stance on that? Burns: Well, we’ve had one brand partnership we’ve been working with for several years, [which is] Tauck, the high-end travel group and we’ve been helping them design tours of particular places, including most recently Vietnam, but mostly centered in the United States, having to do with the Civil War, Jazz or the National Parks. We recognize something in their approach and their excellence. But in terms of making commercials, I have zero interest in doing that. I have many colleagues and artists that I respect, like Spike Lee, who essentially funds his life by doing commercials, or Errol Morris, who is an extraordinary documentarian who does this. I just would have no interest in doing that. It doesn’t turn me on. I live in rural New Hampshire; the overhead is low, the rent is cheap. Still, it would be fascinating to see what kind of approach you would take for a brand like Coca-Cola. Burns: All of our projects are self-initiated and I more often than not would be approached by ad agencies to add a “Ken Burns feel” to an ad. I respectfully pass. I get it and I’m flattered, but I just pass. [kickout id="4"]

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Ken Burns Hates Being Considered a Brand, Unless It Convinces People to See His New Doc, 'The Vietnam War'

Plus, why he’ll never work for HBO or Netflix

Jason Lynch

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Jason Lynch