Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 1, 1994 TAG: 9408020021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID BIANCULLI NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Burns was on the phone with someone out of state, relaying his dissatisfaction with the news that an audio engineer, working on some particular segment of the film's soundtrack, had made it ``even better'' since Burns' departure.
Burns did not raise his voice. But by lowering and slowing it, he delivered his reply in a calm but cold monotone that left no doubt as to who was in charge, or how seriously the work was taken.
``Tell him I don't want it `even better,''' Burns said, evenly but firmly. ``Tell him I want it exactly the [expletive deleted] same.''
I loved eavesdropping on that particular exchange, because it made Burns seem a little more human. Spending a few hours watching him work that day, though, made him seem inhuman as well. He and his staff worked together so diligently, thoroughly and tightly that it became clear why, though many had tried to copy the style of ``The Civil War'' since its phenomenal success, few, if any, have succeeded.
The task before Burns, at this particular hour in April, is to oversee an audio mixing session, as sort of a master chef: guiding his staffers in deciding which ingredients should be used, when they should be added and in what specific quantities. Only instead of flavors, Burns was dealing with taped snippets of sounds and music, and mixing them together to match the already assembled filmed images and John Chancellor's recorded narration.
Burns' first challenge, after that terse phone conversation, is to decide whether footage of old Negro League warmup drills should be ``dreamlike,'' with acoustic guitar the only sound on the film, or be complemented with ``air and birds,'' two of literally hundreds of sound samples ready and waiting to patch through the giant audio console.
Burns watches both versions on the giant screen in front of him, and chooses, finally, the quieter effect.
``Sometimes,'' he says, ``I really insist on the silences.''
Next comes a film sequence in which Shelby Foote, whose compelling and authoritative commentary for ``The Civil War'' made him a reluctant but undeniable TV star, tells about a boyhood trip to Memphis.
An uncle took Foote and his cousin to the hotel where Babe Ruth lived, knocked on Ruth's door, and introduced the boys to their baseball hero.
Foote tells the story with a twinkle in his eye, chuckling over how easy it was to meet and find the Babe, and obviously relishing both the innocence and richness of the brief encounter.
To the untrained eye - even to the allegedly discerning eyes and ears of a visiting TV critic - the entire sequence, punctuated by period exterior and interior photos of the Peabody Hotel, looks like a perfect TV moment. Once again, though, the sound is of concern to Burns, especially during a street scene of vintage Memphis, where Model T Fords fight for road space with horse-drawn carriages.
Listening to the mix, Burns suddenly announces, ``Too many horses. Not enough cars.''
The sequence is re-cued, the audio levels adjusted, and Foote, on film, tells the story all over again. This time, the soundtrack is approved - one more finished one-minute piece in a puzzle that, beginning Sept. 18 on PBS, will run for a total of 20 hours.
``Shelby Foote, he's our rabbit's foot,'' Burns says appreciatively. Many historians, Burns adds, are so intent on displaying their own knowledge of the subject, their accounts sound like year-by-year summaries of facts and figures.
Foote, by contrast, doesn't dwell on when a battle was fought. He describes the smell and taste of the meal around the campfire the night before.
``History is not WAS, but IS,'' Burns says. The challenge, he says, is to bring it to life - which means finding the best music, the most realistic sounds, the most evocative stories and images, and the most talented vocal contributors and narrator, then putting them together. Slowly, surely and with lots of sensitivity.
It was back in 1986, when Burns and company were researching ``The Civil War,'' that a member of his team suggested baseball as a documentary topic. A proposal was turned in to PBS in 1989, and the first filmed interview for ``Baseball'' (with veteran sportscaster Red Barber, now deceased) took place in 1990 - some five months before ``The Civil War'' premiered on TV.
``You can chart the history of baseball since the Civil War with the history of the United States,'' Burns insists. ``After the war, all of the struggles of baseball are all of the struggles of the country. This is the sequel to `The Civil War' in every way, shape and form.
``If `The Civil War' is `The Iliad,' then this is very definitely `The Odyssey.'''
by CNB