What is the Ken Burns Effect?

If you asked the common man or woman that question, answers you might hear would include:

• "Who is Ken Burns?"
• "Go away."
• "Is he related to Mr. Burns on The Simpsons?"
• "That's LOLspeak, right? I can has cheezburger? I ken burnz effekt?"
• "It's like the butterfly effect, except with Ken Burns. One flap of his arms in Walpole, New Hampshire produces an 18-hour documentary about arm-flapping on PBS."

If you asked the average Mac user that question, he or she would say, "It's the panning and zooming effect one can apply to photographs in one's video in iMovie."

Certain savvy Mac users, wishing to make their response more complete, would add, "The effect was named after Ken Burns, the documentarian, who uses the technique liberally in his films to add dynamism to still shots."

Particularly mischievous Mac users would omit that bit and tell you, "The effect was named after Steve Jobs' cat."

If you asked Wikipedia, it would say, "". That's because Wikipedia can't speak, but if it could, it would say, "You can read about this topic here." To which you would say, "Where?" And it would say, "Oh, that's right, I forgot you don't speak Hyperlinkish."

If you asked Modern Hiker, he would say, "It's the positive effect Ken Burns' documentary series has already been having on attention paid toward the National Park System."

Finally, if you asked me, I would say, "It's the drowsing effect Ken Burns documentaries have when I watch them after sunset. It doesn't matter how much I love the subject, be it baseball, jazz, the national parks, or the Civil War. If I sit down to watch one and it's dark outside, I'll be asleep in five minutes flat. That's why I can only watch his films during the day."

If I'm having trouble sleeping, a Ken Burns documentary after dark is better than a warm glass of milk or counting sheep. I believe it's the combination of photographs floating slowly across the screen, soothing music, and peaceful narration. His films are the perfect bedtime stories.

Note to Mr. Burns: I'm sorry. I hope you don't take what I wrote the wrong way. I mean it as a compliment. I'm only lulled to sleep by the best documentaries. I'm also sorry for searching the web for a picture of an adorable kitten with your haircut and the caption "I ken burnz effekt?".