Ken Middleham appreciation thread

This is the entomologist/photographer/cinematographer/wizard responsible for the insect and plant sequences in...

PHASE IV (That trippy horror movie with Lynne Ramsey with the ants)

THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS (The one with the Stevie Wonder songs)

THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE (David Wolper's mockumentary about the struggle for domination between insects and humans acc to wiki)

a 1966 National Geographic doc that I can't seem to find called The Hidden World of Insects and a bunch of other educational films.

His unusual process used meticulously designed dioramas and enormous cameras that shot once every 30 seconds (iirc) in order to film processes the naked eye could not otherwise see, things like:

an acorn sprouting into a tree
a mosquito being born
a droplet of water falling from a flower to the ground
a group of maggots being born and devouring a mouse

AND SO ON

The Hellstrom Chronicle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R8UN9zGD04

A noteworthy scene from Phase IV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7HRC_MjrlY

The Secret Life of Plants (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFByy8QVwrM

Other film credits include:

1971: The Hellstrom Chronicle (Hellstrom Chronicle) - directed by Walon Green (Director insect sequences)
1974: Phase IV - Directed by Saul Bass (insect sequences)
1974: Birds Do It, Bees Do It - Director: Nicolas Noxon, Irwin shelves (additional photographer)
1975: Fire Beetle (Bug) - Directed by Jeannot Szwarc (director insect sequences)
1977: Damnation Alley (Damnation Alley) - Director: Jack Smight (miniature photography)
1978: In the Days of Heaven (Days of Heaven) - Directed by Terrence Malick (time-lapse)

and

Educational Films (selection)

Battle of the Bugs
Black Widow Spider
A Night out with Mr. Toad
Life Cycle of the Monarch

National Geographic

Animals and Amphibians
The Hidden World of Insects
Secret Life of 118 Green Street

I know there are people out there who are like who the f is Ken Middleham -- well, here he is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDElLm1hfSQ

Here he is part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azIXfxqFVQo&feature=relmfu

The only wikipedia entry on Ken Middleham is in German :(

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Middleham

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0585453/
for reference,

and this link has a clip from The Hidden Life of Insects of some albino insects in a cave
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3851789593/

Maybe Monday morning isn't the right time for Ken Middleham -- but when the time comes, this thread will be here to provide you with lots of quality time lapse plant and animal photography.

"It may just be the most amazing film I have ever seen"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Birds_Do_It%2C_Bees_Do_It_FilmPoster.jpeg

http://static.dangerousminds.net/uploads/images/PHASE4111.jpg

If you've had it up to here (points at forehead) with election coverage and handwringing, maybe a little bit of nature footage is just what you need. Nothing soothes a harried brain like the image of water dropping slowly into a puddle, or a wee mosquito being born.

"This magical basement workshop beneath his home is the loving creation and sole domain of the photographic wizard named Ken Middleham."

That's just like the third line of the 10 min clip. The whole thing is great!
Soon there will be more contributors to the Ken Middleham appreciation thread. I'm as sure of it as I am that Ken Middleham was a national treasure.

How many people do you think saw his time lapse nature photography in elementary school? Decades worth, whoever went to school between the mid 60s and the dawn of the VHS era in the 80s, I'd imagine?

What I really wonder is whether his educational films still exist as filmstrips, or how one goes about seeing them.

I'm going to continue to talk to myself here until someone takes the time to appreciate the sublime beauty of the work of Ken Middleham.

Yet another thing I admire about this guy: virtually no one* knew his name, but his unique approach to photography allowed us to see things we would never EVER have been able to see with the naked eye. You know, no big deal, things like rodents being devoured by maggots over a 4-day period.

*let's face it, no one

Perhaps you saw his work in DAYS OF HEAVEN?! (I can't find a clip of it online, but maybe it's out there?)

My guess is that he had something to do with this wheat, but I haven't seen the movie very recently so I don't remember any other plant-based time-lapse photography. I'd bet that Terrence Malick appreciates the work of Ken Middleham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5xdHbMrW5Y

Hellstrom Chronicle poster
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d1/Hellstrom_chronicle.jpg

wiki plot summary

A fictitious scientist called Dr. Nils Hellstrom (played by Lawrence Pressman) guides viewers throughout the film. He claims, on the basis of scientific-sounding theories, that insects will ultimately win the fight for survival on planet Earth because of their adaptability and ability to reproduce rapidly, and that the human race will lose this fight largely because of excessive individualism. The film combines short clips from horror and science fiction movies with extraordinary camera sequences of butterflies, locusts, wasps, termites, ants, mayflies, other insects rarely seen before on film and insectivorous plants/insects.

Can you believe that this thread is in the first page of google results for Ken Middleham? Maybe it's just giving me personalized results, I dunno.

I do know that if you enjoy phantasmagoric plant and insect imagery, Ken Middleham is your man.

I ordered a xerox of the Cinefex interview with him on Hellstrom & Phase IV for $3 a few years ago and it was completely worth it

I had no idea he did Secret Life of Plants, I've heard that film is utterly surreal and now it suddenly stands to reason

Oooh!! I'd read that. Do you have any advice on how to find some of his earlier stuff, like the educational films or the National Geographic doc about insects? None of this stuff appears to be collected anywhere (at least not that i can find) :(

Also you need to watch The Secret Life of Plants -- it's on youtube and netflix. Easy to find in comparison to some of this other stuff.

Huh. I guess it's good to know that some of his filmstrips are at the Library of Congress. The listings are public but they're riddled with weird typos that must have come up through digitization. But apparently he has a series about aphids and the lives of ladybugs. There have to be more copies of these things out there somewhere -- I wonder where old filmstrips go to die. At least now I know that they were commissioned by the Ealing Corporation.

just as an example:
Summary: Follows In detail the life cycle of the ladybug and of
the parasitic wasp which Injects Into the aphid.

1. Plant-lice. I. Ealing Corporation, Cambridge. Mass.

Series: Animal and plant life series (Motion picture)

Fi A 66-175
Ealing Corporation

Aphid and its enemies, part 2 (Motion picture) Ealing
Corp.. 1965. Made by Ken Middleham Productions.

4 mm si. color. 8 mm. (Animal and plant life series)

.\ liHip tilm mounted in cartridge.

With film niilt-s on cartridge case.

Summary: Traces the life cycle of the syrpbld fly which d^>o3its
egs^ among aphids, and of the lacewing.

1. Plant-lice. i. Ealing Corporation, Cambridge, Mass.

Series: Animal and plant life series (Motion picture)

Fi A 66-176
Ealing Corporation

Aphid life history (Motion picture) Ealing Corp., 1965.
Made by Ken Middleham Productions,

3 mill. Si color. S mm. (.\nimal and plant life series)

A loop film mounted In cartridge.

With film notes on cartridge case.

Summajy: Follows the life cycle of the aphid from birth to young
adult. Shows the aphld"s method of feeding on rose bosh, tise of
proboscis and excretion of undigested sap as ■'honey dew," the birth
of first-stage aphid, the shedding and reforming of cuticle in series
of moults, and the Inflation of wings In young adult.

1. Plant-lice. i. Ealing Corporation. Cambridge. Mass.

Series: Animal and plant life series (Motion picturel

Oh man this is awesome -- Black Widow Spider: Her Life Cycle and Her Enemies (1960)

http://archive.org/details/0769_Black_Widow_Spider_Her_Life_Cycle_and_Her_Enemies_18_04_42_00

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8489/8234459187_4ab5b4ea79.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8063/8235521892_430242bca4.jpg

tbrr I really enjoyed today's Ken Middleham appreciation. Makes me wonder -- would there be more KM appreciation if I had named this thread something else? I could have gone with phantasmagoric plant and animal imagery wizard but who's to say that would have been any more popular.

i need to watch more things like this

i've been trying to force my bf to watch phase iv w/ me but i haven't convinced him

mb ask a mod to append a description? i will admit that i never clicked on this thread bc i thought it was abt a football player

Maybe I will. It does sound like a sporty man's name. I kind of wanted it to be a wonderful surprise when someone actually clicked on it, so I initially went for simplicity, which apparently didn't work so well!

Phase IV is great, yr bf will love it. Show him the "go away" clip!

Next task: find A Night Out with Mr. Toad and watch it

Presents close-up studies of commonly known non-poisonous night creatures as seen through the eyes of Mr. Toad. Shown are the cricket, the cockroach, the pill bug, the sow bug, the snail, the millepede, the katydid, the weevil, the moth, the mouse, and the tomato worm. Includes scenes of the sunset, of twilight, of flowers closing, of the rising of the moon, of the formation of dew, and the growth of mushrooms.

Maybe I should ask my librarians to help me -- all I can find is are WorldCat and OCLC entries, but I don't know how to find actual copies to watch. Or if such a thing is possible? Do I have to go to the Library of Congress? Would they even let me watch it? This is turning into such a big ~thing~ in my mind that I can't drop it now.

There's also this: 1975's BUG, dir by Jeannot Szwarc featuring insect cinematography from KM. It's on netflix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A0341bIlG8

The Secret Life of 118 Green Street -- I should have found this sooner!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VeFHUYAQNE

I watched Bug (1975) on Christmas eve and it was pretty good! Very similar to Phase IV in tone and style, trippy synthy soundtrack, same Ken Middleham gold

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8359/8306982729_c00e54524f.jpg

i watched phase iv last night!

That's great! Did you enjoy it?

it was pretty fantastic. i'm recommending it to everyone who likes weird sci-fi.

Anyone who doesn't fall for the imdb description will at least enjoy the visual aspect and ant footage. I mean, really:

Desert ants suddenly form a collective intelligence and begin to wage war on the desert inhabitants. It is up to two scientists and a stray girl they rescue from the ants to destroy them. But the ants have other ideas.

Also every time I google "ken middleham ants" it brings me right back to the same place: here

Why is this guy not more famous?! He's great!!

He got into the opening credits of Bug -- he was a name enough for that back then. I wonder whether technology made his methods obsolete or he just got tired of doing it or what.

no idea

what struck me is how the ants seemed to have different characters, like one recurring ant with a green translucent abdomen. i wonder how much footage he had to shoot in order to get each individual ant to behave in a particular way.

He seems like he was a very patient man. I've not found anything new recently, but I haven't given up either. That WE LIVE image has been one of the more popular things I've posted to tumblr, though. People seem to like insect words better than egg sacs, I guess.

Holy fuck I want to see A Night Out with Mr Toad so bad!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't worry, I've xposted to the new librarian thread asking for help...I want to see all of them!!

Crickets from Days of Heaven -- bonus music, men, fire, Brooke Adams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY9HBAmHMDU

I'm not going to go on too much longer about how little appreciation there is for Ken Middleham, but I do think it's worth noting that a video search for Ken Middleham cinematographer brings up this thread. A search for Ken Middleham (nothing else) has this thread right under imdb. Unless Google is personalizing my searches more than I thought, there is not nearly enough appreciation of the work of Ken Middleham.

I mean, do I need to make a Ken Middleham youtube playlist or something? Is that what people do?

Springtime is a great time to explore the work of Ken Middleham. I've sort of slacked off in my appreciation due to a host of other responsibilities, but at some point I will renew my quest to find more of his work. In the meantime, what better time than the present to revisit the Black Widow Spider: Her Life Cycle and Enemies.

Also, maybe the return of the cicadas will prompt a bit of interest in old Ken and his work. Who knows.

I'm afraid this has not been the case.

If you'd like to freak out about bacteria and rodents, try this (118 green st pt 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37TONWTkPpg

or part 3, which is about lawn mowing, among other things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjA3Qv4IudA

i hope so, at least.

I could not summon any more energy to find any more of Ken Middleham's work than the stuff I've already compiled here, but I still think about it and wish I could see it. Maybe someday.

Excellent compilation thread, thank you. Is there a good early photo of him that might be included? there is a small one in the San Bernadino County Sun from 1951 describing his success in the Popular Photography magazine prizes for that year, but you can only view it once and then they seem to require subscribing.

this is the only one i could find short of subscribing to a magazine!

http://exilimlab.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/pixel4_4/blog/portadas/filmando_lo_invisible_1_1.jpg

i'm glad you enjoyed this thread! i've been waiting for someone to find it because there's so little info about him and his work is so awesome.

thanks for the portrait suggestion.
My particular interest is his 1960 film on the natural history of the black widow: i'm preparing a book on common California spiders with a chapter on the history of illustration, and want to include a paragraph on Ken Middleham and a photo(s). Music sound track aside, his film is easily the equal of modern spider natural history films, so it seems to have been well ahead of its time. Disney's1953 Living Desert has some quite good tarantula spider/wasp footage, not as good but part of the evolution to Mr. Middleham's work. Award winning Microcosmos 1996 has some of the same footage as KM, made much later and no better imo.
Do you know if there were other time lapse cinematographers at that time, or was his work there also new?
I will keep looking for a good earlier photo portrait and let you know if i find anything.
Have you thought of transferring your work to Wikipedia for more hits and maybe more feedback?

i found the film score for phase iv a few months ago on a blog. It's by Brian Gascoigne who would later be Scott Walker's musical partner in crime for his brain-frying Tilt etc phase. Gascoigne apparently intended to release a Phase iv OST LP but it never happened.

So yeah, the long-awaited Scott Walker-Middleham-Saul Bass connection...

And you didn't tell me?! I'm appalled! The music in that movie was v good iirc. Crazy connection too!!

robh - Oh wow, that's great! I love the black widow film so much. I've dreamt of projecting it on a wall while making music of some kind, but this thread is as far as I've gotten with that. His work was definitely ahead of its time. One of the reasons I think it's appealing is that we have seen his footage in so many different places -- in the cinema, in the classroom, on tv -- and it's familiar but difficult to place. And no one seems to know the name of Ken Middleham, so it really does please me that someone (you) must have googled and found this thread! If you can get your hands on any of the educational films that I couldn't find, I would love to see them!!

I've never made a wikipedia entry for anyone successfully (tried to make one for a published author/filmmaker and was rejected!) but I agree that he deserves his own entry. As for this Do you know if there were other time lapse cinematographers at that time, or was his work there also new? I have no idea -- I think I started this thread after seeing Phase IV and was like WHO IS THIS GUY and pursued it for as long as I could before it got in the way of other things I had to do. If there are others, I'd sure like to know about them!

Your book sounds great too! Is this something you're doing for work or art or ?

that's how out of touch I've been-- I told you it was bad!

have made amends just now -- check yr inbox...

haha, ok :)

LL - book: preparing it in my own time and will probably self publish, though it will be a year or 2 yet.
Sent an email to The Nature Box who host the widow film to ask if they can access some of the KM's other nature films at Library of congress,
will post if anything new turns up.

Is this insect metamorphosis footage from an old filmstrip? I wonder if it's KM's?!
http://www.dnatube.com/video/6099/All-About-Insect-Metamorphosis

my google alert for KM produced fruit today, but this was it :(

It looks like we don't have any Biography for Ken Middleham yet.

Be the first to contribute! Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide .

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0585453/bio?ref_=nmbio_ql_1

Goddammit. I want my toad action

google alert has produced fruit

:-/

http://parallax-view.org/2014/09/28/review-bug/

The insect sequences are the work of Ken Middleham, since The Hellstrom Chronicle the dean of insect cinematography; but Bug does not do him proud. In fact, Bug is about the only film I can recall seeing that was not redeemed by a single interesting shot, cut, line, or idea.[

WE LIVE

I thought it was cool when the cockroaches spelled out Parmiter. Some credit for that pls!

heard an interview with Steven Kutcher, "Hollywood bug wrangler" and there was no mention of Ken Middleham or his work :(
they even talked about ants

GOOGLE ALERT NEWS:

Ken Middleham's grandkid has been going through his stuff! And s/he found a bunch of cooooooool old movie posters!!
http://imgur.com/a/G09FV
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/3dfp4v/my_grandfather_ken_middleham_was_a/

Wow. I'm wondering what else is in Ken Middleham's old stuff.

http://i.imgur.com/TD47DRg.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/M59Y0O1.jpg

1. Check your car
2. Check your neck
3. Check your hair
4. Check your bed

Is that damnation alley? Cool!

Btw, LaLaLand let it slip that they will be releasing a CD of the Phase IV film score. I was bummed that the reissue from waxworks was vinyl only so yay

Yeah i forgot to label them
there was one for Phase IV too but it was the same one i think i already posted

Time lapse nature photography and/or mycology enthusiasts should definitely seek out The Creeping Garden, a documentary about the artistic, scientific, computing, and social sides of slime mo(u)ld. I saw it last night and it was GREEEEAT

trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyQqRBJngkY

soundtrack by Jim O'Rourke!

That looks neato but the soundtrack would make me claw my ears off.

So much creepy tension! So much that I would be unbearably agitated. Cool topic though!

Oh man I loooooooved it
The whole experience was extremely soothing

Some people hate cilantro, to each her own :)

The idea of biological computational intelligence--SO FAR OUT, SO NOT THAT FAR AWAY!!! We are living in the science fiction and I want to know more!

So ancient. The cinematography was exceptional as well.

OMG I want to see this NAOW!!!

yeah you will enjoy it. i haven't tried to track down the soundtrack yet but it's at least as effective as A Field in England (although the movie is more traditional in structure)

the people they interview are fascinating, and i also enjoyed the healthy respect for amateur scientists of today and yesterday.

look up the work of heather barnett if you want the art side, and check out the fungarium if you like hidden corners of archives etc http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/collections/fungarium
i also learned about the films of percy smith but there doesn't seem to be much of his stuff online and his end was tragic like david munrow :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Percy_Smith

in the meantime, the acrobatic fly! (from 1910!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hlocZhNc0M

I got one Christmas present and it was a Hellstrom Chronicle dvd!

Cool!

Awesome avant garde score by lalo schifrin on that.

Bugs they plot to destroy us all

Black Widow is on youtube now!
THE BLACK WIDOW IS A MENACE ON FIVE CONTINENTS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur3RE04R2ks

https://youtu.be/TmqGXTl2fzQ

oops apparently this is 10 sec of volvoxes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmqGXTl2fzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThtggIPomoQ

thymol crystals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYTVR9owuAk

BHT crystals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9aI3goikr4

will conclude with this one, obviously the best. snow melts and mushrooms grow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrQKm9uH7hQ

still no wikipedia entry for him in english afaict
this thread continues to pop up as a top search result :-/

Am in zing so cannot see all YouTube titles yet-- is mr toad one of the above???

nope, sorry :(

aw that's ok i will watch all these

most are super short, like 10 sec

i recently went on a trip to visit behind the scenes at the field museum. one of the places i got to see was the room where zillions of beetles clean the bones of birds whose skeletons are getting prepped to be sorted and go into the collection. it was amazing and reminded me of ken middleham.

i don't see that he has gotten any more well known since last i checked but someday i hope to 1) track down his educational films before it is too late if it is not already too late and 2) get some video art assistance and perform some music in front of projections of ken middleham imagery. <--- there it is, if you can help me make it happen lmk! manifest your dreams!

also 4 years ago ilx user "robh" was writing a book -- any updates on that, robh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDElLm1hfSQ

never give up

that's right, never give up!

It finally happened! A band used the black widow film for their own music video. In this case, a band with an extensive backstory named Toiling Midgets. This news courtesy of my Ken Middleham google alert.

https://www.straight.com/music/1331056/toiling-midgets-more-local-you-ever-knew