Local Filmmakers Debut Ken Burns Documentary

Ditmas Park filmmaker Tom Mason and his partner Sarah Klein are well versed in telling a story. Their company, Redglass Pictures, specializes in documentaries of all shapes and sizes, from large public installations to short pieces for the web.   

While the art may come as second nature, being able to put what makes a story work is more of a challenge.

"I think we've both been telling stories for a long time, and we started thinking about how important stories are within the world," Mason told Ditmas Park Patch. "Considering that few people can seem to explain what makes a great story-- it's one of those things where you know it when you see it-- we started to realize it's a really hard to thing to explain. This was the question that was eating at us."

So, the pair decided to turn to the master. "We had the opportunity to sit down with Ken [Burns]," Mason said. "Who better to talk to than somebody who has been making great stories for 30-some years?"

Brooklyn-native Burns is a documentary maker so well-known for his style of using archival footage and photographs, the method is widely known as the "Ken Burns effect."

In their short documentary, Ken Burns: On Story, which premiered this May, Mason and Klein sit down with Burns to explore his methods and the craft of telling a story. 

"We had interviewed him for another project and he gave a great interview; he has such an active mind and he's really insightful," Mason said. "When somehow this all came together, we wanted to talk to him.

"He likes a good conversation, and luckily for us he was game to sit down for us. We had a lot of questions and we didn't know where they would lead, and he tolerated that."

What resulted was over an hour and a half of conversation to be condensed into five minutes. "We sat down with the interview and there was an 'Oh sh*t' moment where we thought, 'What did we get our selves into?'" Mason said. 

"We were very conscious of trying to not make something that was imitating him," Mason continued. "You wouldn't want to make a documentary about Ken Burns in the Ken Burns style."

In the end, the pair put together a piece that at its core was an honest conversation about storytelling and Burns' reflection on his goal to "wake the dead," and if all goes well, will be the first installment in a series about the art of storytelling. 

"We hope to do more versions of the 'On Story' series," Mason said. "[We want to] expand it out beyond the obvious story tellers. A trial lawyer is a story telling; when a chef cooks a meal, puts a menu together, designs a restaurant, that's a story; a political strategist, when he puts together a campaign, is telling a story…" 

Ultimately, Mason said, it all comes back to the story. "We want to tell a good story that moves people, that makes people see the wold in a new way, that teaches them something. If anyone's being honest with themselves, you want to tell a good story."