In ‘The American Revolution,’ Ken Burns’ filmmakers go back to the beginning

When the new Ken Burns documentary series “The American Revolution” premieres on PBS on Sunday, Nov. 16, it will mark the end of a filmmaking journey that began almost a decade ago.

“Ken always says these films take 10 years,” says Sarah Botstein, who co-directed the series with David Schmidt and Burns. “From the second he goes, ‘We’re going to make “The American Revolution”‘ to when it broadcasts is 10 years.”

That’s two years longer than the actual length of the American Revolution, but the Founding Fathers and the Continental Army were making history in real time, while Burns and his Florentine Films team were reading and researching nearly 250 years later.

“I’ve worked on a few of these big epic series,” says Botstein, who joined Burns’ filmmaking world in 1997. “Our process sta