Lynn Novick

Florentine Films

Lynn Novick began her long collaboration with award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns in l989. She first served as associate producer for post production on the landmark Civil War series, then was Producer (along with Burns) of the nine part, eighteen-hour series, Baseball, the most-watched series in the history of public television, and for which she won an Emmy Award.

Novick then co-directed and co-produced (with Burns) a two-part biographical documentary film, Frank Lloyd Wright. The film, which tells the story of America's foremost architectural genius is, according to Janet Maslin of the New York Times , a "towering two-and-one-half-hour(s)...sure to have a high profile because of the turbulent, colorful life of the architect and the austere magnificence of his work, which is thoughtfully assessed." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times says the film "...has the unbeatable combination of exceptional interview material and beautiful architectural photography put at the service of an astonishing life.” Frank Lloyd Wright was shown at the Sundance, Telluride, Edinburgh, and Seattle Film Festivals, and then broadcast on PBS in the fall of l998; Novick and Burns won a Peabody Award for the film.

Most recently, Novick produced the highly acclaimed ten part series, Jazz, which explores in detail the culture, politics and dreams that gave birth to jazz music, and follows this most American of art forms from its origins in blues and ragtime through swing, bebop and fusion. Jack Newfield of the New York Post said: "Jazz is the best American documentary film I have ever seen. Period." Tom Brokaw wrote: "Jazz is a masterpiece of American television." John Carmen of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Jazz informs, astonishes, and entertains. It invites joy, tears, toe-tapping, pride, and shame and maybe an occasional goose bump." Jazz premiered on PBS in January of 2001 and was nominated for 5 Emmy awards.

Novick is currently co-directing and producing (with Burns) Florentine Films’ upcoming seven-part series about American life during World War Two, scheduled for PBS broadcast in 2007.

She was born in London in l962, grew up in New York City. She graduated from Yale in l983. After several years as a research assistant at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Novick began her career in documentary filmmaking as a production assistant at WNET-13 in New York. She then served as researcher and associate producer for Bill Moyers on two major PBS series: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth and A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers. She lives in New York City with her husband, Robert Smith, and their two children.