I find it noteworthy, that no families were drawn. In the film, individuals are found. No relationships were represented. Every figure did what they wanted to.
I love these ladies, and have demonstrated that again and again also during the work on the film. I don’t like Mannerisms, because it is vain and self-celebratory and I like it because it loses it’s for or shape at the climax – because where else should it develop?
An animation or cartoon figure should be presented very clearly. The ladies in the film are clear and unambiguous. They also act fragile and vulnerable. During the drawing work I tried to provoke other images of women. It was interesting for me to find out if behind the perfect facades of the characters – or in the imagination of those drawing them – if images of real flesh and blood women perhaps really did exist. I talked with the girls about these images of women. One of the girls wanted to erase the thighs, which turned out rather wide, and to draw them slimmer. I asked the girl what she didn’t like about the leg. “It’s too fat, it doesn’t look nice”, she said. After a group discussion where I included other pupils and a teacher the fat legs were left as they were.
I encourage a small scene: I suggest that a girl could duck under water. That is a scene that often occurs in a swimming pool and – above all it is quick and easy to draw. I speak about it with a girl, who had asked me what else could be drawn. Her characters were always particularly thin and elegant.