How Do You Film the Revolution?

What we learned making a documentary about a war so distant in time

- By Ken Burns, SARAH BOTSTEIN, AND DAVID SCHMIDT

On June 24, 1778, a total solar eclipse covered a wide swath of North America—from the Pacific Coast of Mexico to Virginia's Eastern Shore. The eclipse occurred just a few days before the Battle of Monmouth, when George Washington's Continental Army engaged General Sir Henry Clinton's British Army—a standoff that nevertheless allowed the Patriots to claim a much-needed victory. The British, meanwhile, continued their retreat from Philadelphia to New York City. We wanted to depict this eclipse for our series The American Revolution, and in this we had a stroke of luck: There would be a total solar eclipse across much of North America on April 8, 2024.

Filming the eclipse would be technically complicated, and if we were hampered by clouds or anything else—if we failed to get the shot—there could be no second take. (The next such eclipse in the United States will occur in 2044.) Our crew headed north from New York City, armed with four cameras. Three would be pointed at the sky and the fourth at the sun's reflection on water. The exposure was going to change wildly in the course of the eclipse, and totality would last only a few minutes. We had intended to film in western New York, in what had been Seneca Country in 1778. But changing weather forecasts pushed us to consider other locations, and we ended up far to the east, in the Adirondacks. Somehow, everything worked out, and the footage we got is some of the most stunning camerawork in the series.