Animating Apothecary - Perpetrations by Jim Middleton: #busterkeatonhome

Showing posts with label #busterkeatonhome. Show all posts

Sunday, October 08, 2023

Post 613 - Link to Buster Keaton: Home Animation project - Big Rapids Pioneer 7 October 2023

Trying to wear out the shirt

BIG RAPIDS — Local animator, Big Rapids native and Ferris State University alumnus Jim Middleton recently provided his talents to a documentary about comedian Buster Keaton.

“Home,” a film by Clear Vision Films that examines the early years of renowned comedian Buster Keaton in Muskegon’s Bluffton neighborhood, wrapped up filming in July and is currently screening at national film festivals before going on general release this coming year.

The production started in 2017 but was delayed by the pandemic until it could resume last year. The 90-minute film that is currently in limited release required hours of interviews to be condensed.

As soon as the pandemic started, Middleton, an internationally renowned animator, was asked to contribute further visuals to the project.

Middleton started his animation journey as a child watching Disney cartoons on Sunday nights.

After his parents pushed him to learn a trade, Middleton became a pharmacist while continuing to work on his animation.

“I kept working on my drawing. I discovered some of the best art lessons you can learn are just to make an animated cartoon because you have to do 500 to 2,000 of them to make anything more than a flipbook,” he said.

Middleton was excited to work on the Buster Keaton project.

“My first reaction was ‘hot diggity.’ I’ve been a big fan of Buster Keaton since I was a kid. I really admire his sense of cinema, his sense of humor, and what he was able to do physically that we have to have computers to do now, he was doing it all in a silent venue,” he said.

He created more material than was ultimately necessary for the project, giving the producers space to edit to fit the narration.

“I created about six to seven minutes of animation for the project because they were in the process of continually editing, and I was in the process of always adding more footage. Everything I drew was shot long, they would probably pull parts out of it,” he said.

Middleton was required to create animated segments to fit the sometimes surreal moments of the film as the “narrative arc” took shape.

“It was a slight challenge to develop a storyboard without any real script for guidance,” he said. “However, my lifelong affection for Keaton’s work made finding reference material a relatively quick task. And having copies of all his surviving films in my archive helped quite a bit.”

He approached it similarly to creating a silent movie.

“I created sequences that were all visually driven. There were no opportunities for dialogue, it was pretty much thinking along the ways you would approach a silent movie,” he said.

Middleton kept in mind the period and made efforts to make it look old, not like modern cartoons.

“I would develop a layout, I would bring it into a digital format, where I would draw it in a digital tablet but I wanted to keep it looking real, not like a typical present-day Spongebob, CGI cartoon, more along the lines of something that may have been animated in the late ‘40s, that was my kind of goal for it,” he said.

He enjoyed the freedom this project afforded him.

“To me, it was an opportunity to experiment and explore. I was given pretty much free rein,” he said.

Middleton implores those who are unfamiliar with Buster Keaton to check out his work.

“This was a hoot from start to finish. If you haven’t seen Buster Keaton, go to YouTube or download it. All of his films are public domain and they have 4k resolutions out there. Each one of them is just a visual treat,” he said.

More information about “Home” can be found at: http:// www.busterkeatonhome.com and Middleton’s short film can be viewed on Vimeo at: https://vimeo.com/796085457/16a55992f8.

Middleton currently holds the position of secretary for ASIFA Central, a regional branch of the International Animation Association established in 1960.

For many years, he organized screenings and lesson plans throughout the state. He recently resigned from teaching “and other distractions” to move to Edmore, where he continues to make movies, blog nonstop, and plan an annual animation festival there every October.

The 2023 International Animation Day Celebration will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 29, at the Curtis Community Building, 209 Sheldon St., Edmore. (note - there will be other venues around the State and immediate area, including Grand Rapids, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland - check your local papers - the locations and times will be added to this blog as information trickles in!)

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Post 606 - Press Release for Animation Segment Documentary from "Buster Keaton: Home"

Opening Title

The Clear Vision Film production of “Home,” exploring the early life of famed comedian Buster Keaton in the Bluffton neighborhood of Muskegon, completed production in July and is making the national film festival circuits before entering broader distribution next year.

The documentary features interviews and recollections with Keaton’s grand-daughter, founders of the International Buster Keaton Society, authors of two recent biographies of the great comedian, and the graphic novelist who created a visual narrative of this pre-WWI neighborhood.

The project began in 2017, with initial filming interrupted by the pandemic until production could resume last year. Hours of interviews had to be distilled into the 90 minute film now in limited release. Internationally recognized animator Jim Middleton, now living in Edmore, was enlisted to provide additional visuals for the project as the pandemic began.

Teen Keaton Manipulates the "Clown Pole"

Comedy performer, producer, writer, and director Carl Reiner also lent his memories of Buster Keaton, as did James Karen, who appeared with Keaton on stage and in one of his last filmed performances. Their interviews were likely their own final public appearances; both passed away shortly after their segments were completed.

Jim Schaub, digital media specialist for GVSU, and Ron Pesch, whose research on Keaton’s summers in Bluffton helped motivate the film’s creation, were co-producers, with Schaub taking on the monumental task of directing and editing the hours of material into a coherent story. “Carl (Reiner) had the pull to have the street around his house cleared of vehicles and traffic for us,” related Schaub. “We showed up with our three little cars and equipment and felt like we should have brought a bigger boat.” He and Pesch were quite moved by how Reiner and Karen “were so generous with their time.”

In the years before air-conditioning, vaudeville performers took the summer months off to escape the heat, and among those were the “Three Keatons,” known for their incredible knock-about slapstick performances and, in particular, for their youngest performer, a dead-pan child named Buster. Patriarch Joe Keaton discovered Muskegon as a place where the family could get a few months rest before returning to a life lived on trains, in theaters, and out of trunks. Buster discovered the closest thing to a “home” that he would ever know.

From "Training Room" segment

Joe Keaton became a promoter for Bluffton as an “artist colony” and brokered real estate and rustic cabins for fellow vaudevillians, to the frequent delight of the local youth, who could encounter trained elephants, eccentric ball players, and elaborate practical jokes during their own summer vacation. The young Buster was able to “act like a normal kid” with them for the only time in his life.

The “Three Keatons” broke up just as Buster went on to start his film career, first with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and then on his own, moving from astonishing short films to stunning features that appeared throughout the 1920s.

Bluffton became a neighborhood of the expanding Muskegon, but the area still has many remnants of the Keaton family presence. Ron Pesch has been conducting tours through the region, especially in October, when the International Buster Keaton Society holds its annual meeting in Muskegon.

Keaton’s personal and professional life suffered several setbacks after the silent years, and his distanced relationship with his sons took many years to rebuild (his granddaughter confesses during her interview that she never saw his films until after he had died). Yet, whenever things were dark for him, he always found comfort in his memories of Bluffton.

Keaton reviews his trains

Many of the “talking heads” anecdotes lacked any visual reference, so Jim Middleton was enlisted to create animated segments to provide the fanciful, nostalgic, and sometimes surreal moments for the film as the “narrative arc” evolved. “It was a slight challenge to develop a storyboard without any real script for guidance,” he explained. “However, my life-long affection for Keaton’s work made finding reference material a relatively quick task. And having copies of all his surviving films in my archive helped quite a bit.”

Middleton created more material than was ultimately necessary, allowing the producers to edit where needed to fit the narration. “Once a work print was available,” he added, “I returned to my original drawings and made additional edits of my own, introducing the necessary sound effects. I just wanted to be sure there was enough material.” In fact, he created additional scenes after the principle edits were complete. “There were three main segments in the original plan, but these grew to nine, with over 3800 drawings ultimately needed. That made for about seven minutes of animation, not all of it being used.” He created a short film demonstrating his traditional hand-drawn animation process, adapted to the 4K world of 2023.

172 pencils were consumed in the making of this project. Some were used for sketching.

Middleton currently serves as secretary for ASIFA Central, a regional chapter of the international animation association founded in 1960, and has been working with film and animation since his high school days in Lakeview, Michigan. He has coordinated showings and curricula around the state for several decades and recently retired from teaching “and other distractions” to Edmore, where he continues to create films, incessantly blog, and orchestrate an annual animation celebration there each October.

More information about “Home” can be found at: http://www.busterkeatonhome.com
and Middleton's short film can be viewed on Vimeo at: https://vimeo.com/796085457/16a55992f8