A FAIRLY COMPLETE FILMOGRAPHY - with links as they come available
(a less complete listing on the difficult-to-update IMDb - IMDb for Jim Middleton )
Animation
Works in Progress for 2024-2025: Sfumato #4 -Scherzoo, Sfumato #5 - Toll Sud, and "Subsequent Child" (co-production)
Animation for the documentary, "Home" (released in 2024 to festivals, premiere in Toronto in April, 2024) - produced by Jim Schaub of GVSU to celebrate the summers of fun created by the vaudevillian family, "The Three Keatons" at Bluffton, near Muskegon, Michigan. The animation bits run about 7 minutes: Keaton:Home Animations
Academy Countdown - Animating Apothecary Version (2022) - 10 Seconds on Vimeo!
"27 Days - Sfumato #3.14" (2022) - a promotion for the film Uvula (in production), marking down the 27 days represented between productions (promotion time for Sfumato #3 below). Here 'tis: https://vimeo.com/672565831
"Avian
Flu" (2006) – a 90 second “PSA” created over a caffeinated weekend, to
show my animation class what could be done with Flash. The original
version was even exported using the Flash software, but I strongly
advised the class against ever doing that. I enthusiastically
promote the idea of exporting any series of computer generated frames as
individual GIFs, TIFFs, PNGs, or JPGs to give you control of the output
and "master files." Just try to run a SWF file these days, or an early MOV file for that matter, and oh boy am I going out on a soapbox.
It took the PSA award at the 2007 KAFI festival, however, so that got
me on a discussion panel on how to be successful at film festivals,
where I recommended doing PSA films or music videos (neither category
gets all that many entries). https://vimeo.com/580557044
ANIJAMS with ASIFA Central created by assorted, very motivated, members, 2015-2021 - this one was at the 2021 Grand Rapids Art Prize: https://vimeo.com/580914319 (with Deanna Morse, Gretchen Vinnedge, and Suzanne Zack) - with a peek at the installation itself - Watercolors Aquarium Gallery
A Video Valentine commissioned by our amazing social calendar coordinator, Sparrow (2024): Valentine from Sparrow
"Chippewa Projects" (1999-2004)--2D animation for children's day care series, casino promotions, PSAs, Chippewa creation legend... all together, it came to about 4 minutes' worth of animation. It was an interesting exercise in committee creation. I kept the drawings. Something else, some other project - likely First Nation Creation Stories - someday!
"Channel Surfing" (1994) -- Promotional animation for a Chicago-based Fox television pilot. Here's a lesson--get it in writing. After working on a pilot with the AM radio personality (then enjoying well deserved popularity at WLUP) for nearly six months, the whole plug was pulled when the affiliate wanted the two of us to take on all legal fees for them. So, somewhere exists a 45 second sequence of a transsexual promoting pre-lubed jewelry and a roughed-out, animatic for the opening. Live and learn! A subsequent Cavalcade of Sports FOR YOU did appear on the local Sports Network, running from 1995-1997, with existing episodes on archive.org. It was nominated for a regional Emmy and cancelled the same week. Oh those wacky 1990s! Here are four episodes on the archives: https://archive.org/details/jim-shorts-76-78-79-80 (others are at the same site if you want to consume them all)
"Cereal Symphony" (1991) -- Stop-motion and 2D paper animation synchronized to The Poet and Peasant Overture,
ca 1917, for Arts Council promotion for Battle Creek, which ceased to
exist shortly thereafter. I saved so many cereal boxes. Link to an excerpt
"A HyperRomantic Expectation" (1987) -- part of a master's thesis on dance for the University of Michigan...not my master's in dance – that was a project of a sweet wisp named Melissa Trombley who was recovering from a broken back. So she figured it would be less traumatic to do something to a specially-created animation background. 700 cels painted, shot on 16mm under such a tight timeline that I received the seven minutes of film from the lab, spliced the reels together, and had it to the stage setup in time for the dress rehearsal four days before her performance. Excerpt of Performance Here
"Alpha" (1985) -- awards from Ann Arbor, Toronto, Lisbon, Tunis, and Melbourne film festivals. This collection of 2500 cel and paper background drawings saw more of the world than I ever will. When it played in Tunis, there was Arafat--when it played in Lisbon, there was an earthquake-- when it played in Brazil, there was economic collapse...perhaps I need to bring it out for the festival circuits again! Alpha on Vimeo
"Daydreams" (1982) -- homage to Little Nemo -- awards from Ann Arbor,
Toronto, and Los Angeles film festivals; aired on France's Antennae 2 network (I think they still have my print) Vimeo to Daydreams
"Self Made Man" (1978) -- 2D animation, awards from Jacksonville and Ann Arbor film festivals. Shot in a very hot attic apartment near Pontiac, Michigan. Vimeo: Self Made Man
Student (high school) works: "It's A Dog's World (1970), "I, A Wizard" (1971, https://vimeo.com/656761687 ), featuring my phenomenally talented and tolerant brother David, "The Miller's Tale" (1972), Miller's Tale on Vimeo "Good Garbage" (1973) Good Garbage on Vimeo - some Kodak teenage filmmaker awards, lots of lectures on how expensive movie film was, shouldn't I be saving for college, and do I have to have those #@!! lights on and heat up the house!
Non-animated Productions (actor/director/writer)
"History Detectives: Sweatin' to the Oldies" (2013) - helped solve the pressing mystery of the man behind the scenes of the first recorded exercise routines...(spoiler alert - it wasn't Dr. Kellogg) - PBS is my favoritest network! Hear pieces of my mp-minus-one collection! https://www.pbs.org/video/history-detectives-fitness-flappers-and-phonograph-records/
The Mill Race of Battle Creek” (2009) – made in collaboration with my animation class at Kellogg Community College, completed post production and animation https://vimeo.com/580560707
"Joy at the Speed of Light" (1995) -- documentary about individual contributors to the art of animation--Kids! Try this at home! https://vimeo.com/807277228
"The Kellogg Brothers" - A&E (1994) - performed research, made connections, taped early exercise recordings, and even appeared on camera as a "local historian" (nobody else would answer the phone!)
"Behind the Counter" (1993) -- a pilot for a pharmacy promotional series for the Michigan Pharmacy Foundation; script, direction, production, and edit; also portrayed a doctor (gee, every pharmacist's dream...yeah the budget was that tight...) More Crumbling Video!
"The One Dollar Miracles of Battle Creek" (1993) -- a look at the patent medicine industry in Battle Creek, based on an article (see another page here) Video version linked here
"The Battle Creek Idea" (1992) -- film about Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, medical director at the Battle Creek Sanitarium and originator of modern day breakfast foods. Based on my 1992 radio play (reprinted in the blog) performed by members of the Grand Rapids Radio Players. Linear Edit Version from 1992
"1961" - (1991) - The Grand Rapids Radio Players performed a 30 year anniversary tribute for WGVU-FM, and my brother David and I made more funny noises, and they let me in front of the microphone with some of my own material. All of that was all cut before the broadcast. Sigh. Odd to think, too, that this broadcast was for a 30 year anniversary, and now, in 2021, it has been 30 years since that commemoration. Whoosh!!! A clip of the rehearsal and some of the cut performance is here: "1961" rehearsal and show
“Radio Play” (1989) – Suzanne Zack and the late Chuck Peterson assembled this incredible document, using linear video editing, of a week in Grand Rapids when David Ossman of The Firesign Theatre directed some two dozen sonic hopefuls. See here for this bit of magic when we all could do impossible things before breakfast....my brother David and I got to make funny noises. Here is the 20 minute document from 1989 - "Radio Play" (1989)
“Your Pharmacist” (1988) - A PSA for the Michigan Pharmacists Association...the 30 second opus is still floating around, and I got to play a pharmacist, how 'bout that! Produced by Kalamazoo's Lawrence Productions. MPA PSA 1988"A New Pharmacy Film" (1976) - the departing dean and assistant dean decided they needed to update their old pharmacy promotion film, and I needed a reference to get a job interning at Searle in Skokie that summer. Thus, I was given the "great opportunity" to write and cast a new promotional film. I wanted to use actual film, since editing on video then was only when "live" in a studio, and never in post-production. I was told no to film. I also had some animation set up for the credits and was also told no, "We don't do animation." So I snuck in on a weekend for camera access and animated the closing "End" title on 16mm, and transferred it to the 1 inch video master. The 15 minute result was more Mel Brooks than educational, and when the final title appeared, someone asked, "Where'd that animation come from?" "I did that," I said. "We don't do animation," was the response. It played for that summer at school while I was in Skokie, and when the new dean saw it, well, the only thing that remained was the 3/4 inch reel-to-reel dupe I made on the sly. After getting this faded, mylar flaking master transferred to VHS and, ultimately, to mp4, I was finally able to edit the thing to its intended seven minutes. Also wrote and performed in several short "commercials" encouraging fellow students to study their "Morrison and Boyd" organic chemistry tomes. I did a very bad Groucho Marx in one of them. The Ruins of Video
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