Larry Janiak taught animation and filmmaking at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago from 1968 to 1980.
Larry was hired by Aaron Siskin, then the head of the photography department, to set up an animation and experimental filmmaking area at the Institute of Design.
Larry built the education program he invented to a position of excellence and national recognition.
Many graduate and undergraduate students won awards and found jobs with their finished film work in the professional film community of the United States.
Over $40 ,000 was invested in filmmaking equipment, including a professional 16mm Oxberry animation stand.
There was a graphic arts workroom with film production equipment, two Super 8 animation stands with cameras, four film editing areas, and a film projection classroom with an informal discussion area.
The animation and experimental filmmaking area was located in Mies Vander Rose Crown Hall on the IIT campus.
This is a beginning class of undergraduate students working in the basic introduction to animation concepts and techniques of animated film.
Larry is introducing a toy, Zootrope, for the students to see, manipulate, and draw.
The Zootrope was an early animation device invented in 1834.
It's called the Wheel of Life.
This persistence of vision toy consists of a rotating drum with viewing slits spaced around its circumference.
The rotation of the drum causes the slits to function as a shutter.
A long narrow paper strip of animated drawings or photographs placed inside the open drum will create the illusion of motion when viewed through the shutter action of the slits on the spinning drum.
Everyone can easily make animated drawings and put them into the small Zootrope for viewing.
Early Form Sequences is a book of elegant animated drawings by Kirk Kranz.
He developed the storyboard to the level of fine art.
Kirk Kranz studied at the Bauhaus in Germany with Vasily Kandinsky.
The Human Figure in Motion is a book of sequential figure motion photographic studies by Edward Mybridge.
This book is useful in showing the articulated steps necessary to portray animated human and animal movement.
Larry often used art books to demonstrate visual flow concepts.
For sophisticated Zootrope animation we worked on a larger scale.
This long wide paper strip can hold dozens of sequential images.
We drew abstract animated images by hand, made animated silhouette images, or mounted a sequence of photographs on the paper strip.
The creative richness of the larger Zootrope was open to student imagination.
Our large Zootrope was handmade as a beginning class project and was used by hundreds of students who took the basic instruction to animation class.
Finished paper strips were placed inside the big drum and the animated images are seen in motion when viewed through the slits around the drum.
Since the slits animate the images on the paper strip from any viewing position around the rotating drum, several students can watch the images animating at the same time.
This is a beginning animation class viewing their finished animated sequences.
Each student has their own unique animated Zootrope strip which everyone in the class will get to see.
If the first version does not animate well, a second or third version can easily be made on additional strips.
This is a photographic sequence.
The action progresses in steps then repeats again to link the animated action.
The major project in the introductory class was drawing directly on film and making a synthetic optical soundtrack to match the action.
Direct drawing on film with various graphic techniques is an inventive way to make simple inexpensive projects without a camera.
We worked on different types of 16 millimeter film emulsions.
Each semester we tried new approaches to drawing on film.
We drew on clear film with colored felt pens then used a chemical blockout painted on the raw emulsion of light struck film, processed the film in black and white photographic chemicals, and hand colored the resultant images.
We made colored photographs directly on film with colored pen lights working in a photographic darkroom, had the film process, and combined the edited film with our handmade optical soundtrack.
The sound system on a 16 millimeter projector operates on intermittent light.
We used clear 16 millimeter film and applied small strips of self -stick letraset.
The strips created parallel lines in various tiny patterns directly onto the soundtrack area of the film matching the action of the images.
Varied patterns of tiny parallel lines will produce a variety of harmonic sounds when placed in the optical track area of 16 millimeter film.
Synthetic soundtracks were made by students using the 16 millimeter projector as a creative tool to play back their musical compositions at sound speed.
Changes or corrections can be made with little effort.
The students also projected their handmade film images in order to fine tune the editing process.
Their hand colored images were combined with a synthetic soundtrack at a motion picture laboratory to make a final film print.
To develop a story idea into an animated film, a storyboard illustrating the steps is necessary for film production.
A storyboard consists of a series of sketches which depict the visual progression of the story idea.
A storyboard is a series of film proportioned rectangles on a large pad of paper.
Commercially printed storyboards are available and used extensively by professional film producers.
Larry used film books to show examples of professionally made storyboards.
Students would start with simple sketches and then make a detailed storyboard of their animated film idea.
The storyboard and film script are the two most useful tools in the production of a motion picture film.
All graphic artwork is pre -planned on the storyboard and cross -referenced with the written script.
Larry recommended that students make sketches of their film ideas.
Spontaneous sketches often form the nucleus of an interesting film.
Whatever images or ideas that interest students, sketching them focuses their creative potential.
Animated film concepts were developed from the personal interests of individual students.
These ideas often made the most unique and creatively successful films.
This is a storyboard sequence being explained to the animation class.
Students in the group often have suggestions that can improve or clarify another student's film ideas.
This is a clear and concise storyboard depicting a student's animated film idea.
These students are in the introductory animation class which gave them an overview of animated filmmaking.
To make an animated film, students enrolled in the two semester major animation film class.
Larry encouraged active discussion and involvement in the creative work being done by everyone in the class.
Film and TV graphics was written by Walter Herdig and John Hallis.
This book contains many examples of excellent experimental and commercial films made for business and television.
In addition to showing students art and technical books, Larry often screened professional, commercial, and experimental art films.
He also led class tours of professional film and animation companies, film processing labs, film special effects houses, and sound recording studios in downtown Chicago.
Larry taught all students to develop their own unique creativity and guided them to original visual solutions.
He taught them professional film production skills and instilled a professional attitude toward quality filmmaking.
Animated film concepts, methods, and uses by Roy Madsen was written as a user's guide for the Oxbury 16 millimeter animation stand.
Each student was trained in the technical operation and creative possibilities of the Oxbury stand.
Photographing an animated film is an extremely time consuming process which requires concentration and patience.
Even more, it requires careful pre -planning and detailed organization.
A hundred feet of 16 millimeter film lasts two and a half minutes on the screen.
To make two and a half minutes of film, a student must change the artwork, move a picture, alter the camera position, then press a button to take one picture and do this over again 4 ,000 times to make two and a half minutes of finished animated film.
Larry guided the development of each student's unique individual creative talent and helped foster their inventive potential.
Not all students were designers or photographers.
Some were from engineering, psychology, or the social sciences.
Every student was supported in creating their own special film story or graphic vision from their own unique experience and background.
The clear plastic field guide has a series of outlined film frame proportions printed in varying sizes.
The field guide is in register with the Acme three hole peg system and the optical center of the Oxbury animation stand.
It is used to proportion the artwork to the correct size for use on the stand.
Pan, zooms, and rotations can be pre -planned by using the field guide as a composing tool when preparing the artwork for a film project.
A completed exposure sheet is necessary to photograph complex film sequences on the animation stand.
Complex movement of artwork planned for a film sequence can be written on them frame by frame as a shooting guide.
Storyboards are a pre -production tool in planning a film.
Mike Peer was explaining his storyboard to a group of advanced animation filmmaking students.
They are making their own animation films on the Oxbury animation stand.
The first step in making a film is writing the script.
Next, the soundtrack is planned and recorded on 16 millimeter magnetic film.
All the artwork or photographs used in a film project are generated according to the pacing and length of the soundtrack.
Larry Janieck taught at the Institute of Design for 12 years.
He developed the following animation and experimental filmmaking courses.
Basic Introduction to Animation The two semester undergraduate major in Design Animation Introduction to Experimental Live Action Independent Study in Design Animation Independent Study in Experimental Live Action Senior Thesis in Design Animation Senior Thesis in Experimental Live Action Graduate Projects in Design Animation Graduate Projects in Experimental Live Action Design Animation Graduate Thesis Film and Experimental Live Action Graduate Thesis Film Most students in the animation filmmaking area were undergraduates who specialized in animation in their second, third, or fourth undergraduate year at the Institute of Design.
With the development of the animation film program, many graduate students came to study animation, including graduate students from the Art Education program.
Some graduate students worked in the classic character animation technique and utilized animation discs set up for drawing character animation.
This is Sandy Greenberg working on hand -drawn cells for her film project.
Using PEG registration, artwork can be set up for use on the animation stand.
Mike Peer is punching clear cells for his film project on the ACME three -hole registration punch.
The Moviola is a professional film editing machine.
It can play 16 millimeter magnetic soundtracks.
Film work print can be edited to match the soundtrack of a student's film project.
Mike Peer is working on the Moviola film editing machine.
He is marking the key picture and sound synchronization points for his project on 16 millimeter magnetic film.
The major piece of filmmaking equipment at the Institute of Design animation area provided for student use was a professional 16 millimeter Oxberry animation stand located in its own specially equipped room.
The Oxberry animation stand is a sophisticated 16 millimeter photographic copy stand for filming specially prepared artwork for various styles of animated film.
The animation stand has a movable compound table surface for artwork, an underlight for filming slides and other transparencies, and a registration PEG system.
The camera on the animation stand is operated from the solid state electronic control unit.
The control panel has a frame counter to keep track of each frame of film being photographed in the camera.
Single frame exposures can be made by pressing the button on the control panel.
The Institute of Design was the only school in the Midwest that had a sophisticated professional Oxberry animation stand available to graduate and undergraduate students specializing in animated filmmaking.
The camera moves up and down changing field sizes as it changes position.
There is a speed and motion control dial on the control panel for this function.
The camera lens operating on a special milled cam focuses automatically on the arc work.
Camera coverage spans an area two inches across to two feet across.
The compound table moves north south and east west on two geared threaded rods with counters.
On the compound are four moving pan bars with counters that move the registration PEGs holding the artwork across the compound table.
The compound table can be rotated on its center axis or moved off center and rotated in any area of the scene being photographed.
All the capabilities of the animation stand can be used in different combinations to create complex motion effects on film.
The 16 millimeter camera on the animation stand is custom made.
It has a pin registration film movement for extreme accuracy.
An automatic film buckle switch built into the camera prevents a malfunction with the film loaded in the camera.
The film drive mechanism can be changed to leave the shutter open for rotoscoping.
The animation camera has a special dissolving shutter.
The shutter provides for dissolves and fades right in the camera.
Larry computed, tested and made a special series of fade and dissolve charts for the Oxberry animation camera.
Two 3200 degree kelvin temperature lights were used to illuminate artwork being photographed on the animation stand.
Students were able to sign up to use the animation stand for experimental film tests as well as filming their final projects.
After receiving an introduction to animation stand operation Mary Lynn Van Dyken is seen photographing artwork for her final film project on the Oxberry animation stand.
Communicating with motion picture film is a complex and powerful visual process.
Creativity and patience are only two of many qualities needed to make a film which succeeds.
Creative filmmakers bring elements from many sources and blend them into a vital and expressive new film reality.
Effective communication with the intended audience requires clear planning and insightful research.
Development of a motion picture film involves empathy and a sensitive understanding of the subject and ability for composition and design.
And an awareness of our common social reality for a film to be relevant and persuasive in our complex society.
The technical and aesthetic education program provided by the Institute of Design Animation Filmmaking area.
Focused on professional craftsmanship and individual creative investigation in a balanced inventive relationship.
Experimentation and filmmaking techniques, story concept and personal film expression was emphasized and supported by Larry Janiak as necessary for the development of a creative, sensitive and mature filmmaker.
The Institute of Design Animation Filmmaking area was invited to join the international office of the combined institutes of animated film in Paris, France.
Copies of student films, film material and memorabilia from the Institute of Design Animation Filmmaking area is deposited in the Bauhaus archive in Berlin, Germany and at the Chicago Historical Society.
Larry Janiak wishes to thank all the creative students he had the pleasure of working with and learning from.
The Institute of Design Animation Filmmaking area is a place where students can learn from and learn from each other.
