Lawrence Janiak

Animation Film Making: A Teaching Method at the Institute of Design 1968 to 1980

A short video documentary on Larry Janiak's time as an instructor at the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he taught undergraduate and graduate students for 12 years. Aaron Siskind hired Larry in 1968 to start an experimental live action and animated film area at the school. A narrator introduces Larry's career and achievements at the school and guides viewers through the animation filmmaking area. The film primarily features footage of a beginning animation course taught by Larry.

Life and Film

A collaborative film conceived as a ‘picture postcard,’ the moving images recorded by the camera mirroring the card’s picture side, the sound track evoking its written message. Life and Film is a lyrical look at some Chicago filmmakers on their way to the Michigan sand dunes.

Agamemnon in New York

What started as a film test on new sync-sound film equipment quickly became a short film documenting the typical nuttiness behind the scenes at Goldsholl Design & Film Associates, a Chicago-based design firm that employed both Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak. Janiak ad libs alone, as no one else would come out from the behind the camera. Shot by Boyer and edited by Janiak, a home movie.