Preparation

The theme Grenzen und Übergänge was broadly formulated on purpose and by all means did not only refer to regional ones.
Marianne Friedrich teaches 27 children in her class. In order to structure the work, I divided the children up into groups. One group was to be responsible for the film characters, one group for the animation, one for the voice overs/sounds, one for the film score and so on…
First of all though, the plot had to be developed. A number of suggestions that came from the children were written on the board. After a few discussions, the children agreed upon „Angst vor’m 3meterbrett“.
A small boy was afraid to jump from a three-meter diving board and was therefore laughed at by everyone.
On the first day at the school I simulated a small animation film with the children. ( A dry-run that had nothing to do with the later film.)
Four children always solved a small task together. The next group over took the preliminary work and supplemented it. In the end, the children had designed a small film. In the mean time, the rest of the class had looked at selected animated films. The film blocks were approximately 15 minutes long. There was time afterwards to discuss the viewed films.

The animated film dry-run
began with me dividing the class into two groups.
There were two production teams, and in the end two very different drafts for an animation film. Both of the production teams were divided into small groups.
I played three different noises for the children who were supposed to concoct the film plot, and encouraged them to create a story from them. The second group designed the characters for it, the third drew the background, the fourth group wrote out what sounds the film could be set to, if one wanted to realize it (which was not our intention).
In the end, although the conditions were the same, there were two completely different ideas for the film, with entirely different characters.

Back to our actual film project:
Eight to ten children worked in the animation film workshop, and the rest at the school.
The children in the workshop did a few exercises on the first day, in order to understand how an animation film is drawn. While that was going on, the children in the school, formulated stories during their German class.
The stories were sent to the workshop per fax. The children, who should realize the story, had the job of choosing one of the stories and furthermore the right to ask for changes, since they were supposed to transform it. The stories were read out loud in the workshop and discussed. Finally the children unanimously (!) agreed on one of the stories.
To tread the fax way further, the children sent the desired changes per fax to the school. The revised version was then faxed back and the children began to design the characters. In doing so, we took care to ensure that the figures were not too detailed, as the next group had the job of animating them. Again, these children were allowed to criticize and change the designs of the figures.