The Ken Burns Effect

Skills Covered
Ken Burns Effect
Pan
Zoom

You have probably already seen the Ken Burns Effect and didn't even know it. Ken Burns is a documentary filmmaker who often uses historic documents and photographs in his projects (rather than having actors re-enact scenes from the past). Static photographs can be boring on the TV screen, so Ken Burns uses a technique of panning and zooming to liven up his films. Ken Burns wasn't the first director to employ this technique, but it has become so closely associated with his work, people just tend to call it The Ken Burns Effect.

If you're a Mac user you've seen it in iPhoto or iMovie - the Ken Burns Effect. If you search the web for Ken Burns Effect Flash, you'll see that quite a few people actually make MONEY building Flash projects with the Ken Burns effect. Do you like money? I bet you do!

Check out the example below! Imagine the project with Morgan Freeman narrating! Wow!

Based on what you've learned from previous exercises, you should be able to do something like this with little problems! Just put all your images into MovieClips and slowly animate them! Viola - The Ken Burns Effect!