Lynn Novick is an American director and producer of

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

s, widely known for her work with Ken Burns.

Early life

Novick was born in 1962, raised in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, and graduated from

Horace Mann School , motto_translation = Great is the truth and it prevails , address = 231 West 246th Street , city = The Bronx , state = New York , zipcode = 10471 , countr ...

in 1979. She graduated magna cum laude from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

with honors in American Studies.

Career

Novick was a research assistant at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

's National Museum of American History before beginning her film career as a production assistant at

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

, a public television station in Manhattan. She then worked on

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Counci ...

' projects '' Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth'' and '' A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers'' before moving to Florentine Films in 1989 to work on Burns's 1990 series, '' The Civil War'', as associate producer for post production. In 1994, she produced Burns's nine-part series, ''

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

'', (1994) for which she received an Emmy Award. In 1998, she was director and producer (with Burns) of two-part biographical documentary, ''

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

'', for which she received a Peabody Award. In 2001, Novick produced Burns’ 10-part series, ''Jazz''. Among her more recent collaborations with Burns have been '' The War'' (2007), '' Baseball: The Tenth Inning'' (2010), and ''

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

'' (2011). Her next collaboration was an 18-hour documentary film series, ''

The Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and ...

'', with Burns and

Geoffrey Ward Geoffrey Champion Ward (born 1940) is an American editor, author, historian and writer of scripts for American history documentaries for public television. He is the author or co-author of 19 books, including 10 companion books to the documentar ...

, which aired in September 2017. In 2019, her four-part series '' College Behind Bars'', was broadcast on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

. On April 5, 2021, a three-episode, six-hour documentary, a recapitulation of

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

's life, labors, and loves, debuted on the

Public Broadcasting System The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

, co-produced and directed by Burns and Novick.What to Watch on Monday: The start of Ken Burns’ ‘Hemingway’ documentary
''

News & Observer ''The News & Observer'' is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the largest in circulation in the state (second is the ''Charlotte Observer''). The paper has bee ...

'', Brooke Cain, April 5, 2021. Retrieved April 8, 2021. In April, 2021, it was announced that Novick would be joinin
Meadowlark Media
as a creative advisor.

References

1962 births Place of birth missing (living people) Living people American documentary filmmakers American television directors American television producers American women television producers Emmy Award winners American women television directors American women documentary filmmakers 21st-century American women {{tv-director-stub