For Ken Burns, simultaneously working on six film projects is making for the best of times and the worst of times. “It’s the best of times because there’s work; it’s the worst because only an idiot does six films at once,” he said with a laugh in front of an audience made up mostly of Michigan State University film students in the MSU Union Ballroom Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve already, just between the airport and here, worked on all six films.”

The Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and Michigan native, known best for his multi-part examinations of jazz music, baseball and the Civil War, was on campus to give a lecture Wednesday night at the Wharton Center as part of the College of Arts and Letters Signature Lecture Series.

Students Angela Wilson and Audrye Tucker are taking the documentary specialization at MSU, and they said that although the colloquium was not required, they are interested in Burns and documentary filmmaking for their careers. “We really like his style,” Wilson said. “He uses a lot of techniques we talked about in class.”

Tucker said she was interested in learning about his process and how he finds stories and develops them into films.

Janet Swenson, associate dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs of the College of Arts and Letters, and Jeffrey Wray, an MSU professor, enthusiastically introduced Burns before his talk.

Before opening the floor to questions from the audience, Burns spoke for a short time about his latest projects, how he got into filmmaking and the challenges he has faced in his career.

Burns told the audience that once he developed an interest in documentaries, there was no going back. “As certain as I’ve ever been about anything, I wanted to be a filmmaker.”

He also warned students that nothing “will be handed to you on a silver platter,” relaying a story of his struggles while trying to find support for his first film, about the Brooklyn Bridge, when he was 22 and “looked like I was 12.”

Of his current projects, Burns said he is adding a 10^th “inning” to his nine-part 1994 documentary “Baseball,” which he called “a history of our country seen through the eyes of our national pastime.” He is also working on documentaries about Prohibition, the Dust Bowl, the Central Park jogger case, the Roosevelts and Vietnam.

Questions for the director ranged from how much film is shot that isn’t used, how he decides whom to have voiceover his films and what it’s like making a historical documentary when everyone knows the outcome.

In response to the last question, Burns replied, “Good history is making people think it’s not going to turn out the way you know it did.”

Burns spoke about feeling very attached to Abraham Lincoln while shooting his film about the Civil War and not being able to go into the theater where Lincoln was killed. When it came time to shoot the gunshot that would signify Lincoln’s death in the film, Burns said the whole crew started crying and held off the recording for about 10 minutes.

When students asked what advice he had for aspiring filmmakers, Burns said the road to success varied extremely, and he couldn’t give them a roadmap. The most important advice Burns said he could offer was for students to know themselves. “A lot of it is knowing who you are and persevering,” he said. “A style just means you’ve taken the techniques of your trade and applied them authentically to you.”