It's the Brian Laira Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

Well, the legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has another ambitious project ready to roll out.

It's called the American

Revolution. And it's pegged to the fact that we are now in the 250th anniversary year of the

founding of the United States. Think about it. July 4th, 1776 to July 4th, 2026 is 250 years,

a quarter of a millennium. We've already passed the 200th anniversary of the

start of the war, which was April 1775. And just in time for Thanksgiving, when people think more

than usual about the colonial era, the six episodes will air on consecutive nights beginning Sunday night, November 16th.

Now, Ken and Sarah also have an Atlantic magazine story in the November issue called What

We Learned from Filming the American Revolution. Ken Burns joins us now along with the co-director

and longtime collaborator,

Sarah Botstein, will talk and we'll listen to a few audio clips from episode one. Sarah, welcome,

and Ken, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much. You didn't try to tell the story

of the last 250 years, Ken, just of the period of the American Revolution.

Why did you choose that as your frame for six episodes of two hours each?

Well, first of all, I take issue with your word, Peg, in the introduction, because we began this in December of 2015. Barack Obama still had 13 months to go

in his presidency. Nobody was talking 250. We weren't thinking 250. We just realized after the Civil

War, World War II in Vietnam, we had this big glaring hole in our resume.

Those films that you had done. Go ahead. Yep, go ahead.

Yeah, just so people know you're referencing films.

Yeah, films that we had done. And it was daunting, of course, because there are no photographs

or newsreels from this period, but we really felt strongly that we had to dive in and know about it.

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