The animation film „Angst vor’m 3meterbrett“ is almost nine minutes long. That is tremendously long for an animation film. We had very little time for the realisation of it. The children produced the drawings and cells in just over three weeks. Subsequently, whenever fitting and possible, I shrunk or enlarged drawings using the copier, and cut a lot of things out. Through this trick, the children didn't have to draw as much.
Unfortunately we chose an unfavourable period of time for our work in the workshop. Of all days, on the day that the first school group should come to the workshop, one of the subruban rail trains caught on fire at the Anhalter train station. The consequence for our project unfortunately was that the children came far too late to the workshop. As a result of the fire, and the subsequent delays in commuter traffic during the follwoing weeks, the already scarce time in the workshop became even more so.

Because of the tight schedule the children were not so familiar with the project.
It is better when the children know precisely how far along the project is, and on which scene they are currently working.
In my idea of an animation film workshop, I had too much control of things. The children often didn't know in which part of the film, their scene would be seen in, whether it was an important one, or a marginal scene. Within our time frame though, it was not otherwise feasible.
I filmed and edited it alone. I showed the children, how it's done with the technology. The children were also in the workshop for two days of the filming, above all so that they learnt, what happened further with their drawings in this process.
And so it was, that the children in the end came to expect a perfect film from me.
When they had actually done the filming themselves, and had take part in the post-production, they would have found out how many difficulties arose in the last phases of the work. In the rush, some of cells were painted on the wrong side, and some of the animation sequences were only partially drawn.
I completed what went wrong due to the lack of time. I wanted to avoid an involuntary humour. One character for example, had an ice cream in their hand. Once in a while the ice cream was there, and once in a while it was forgotten.
In conclusion, I would say that in future large film projects I would involve children right up until the end in the work.
On project days in the workshop, I would still take over the cutting of materials after the second or third day as the few days, which the students normally spend in the animation workshop, should be above all for drawing and animating.
In order to provide an idea of the time: With a more relaxed paced with the children participating right up to the last step, the work on our film „Angst vor’m 33meterbrett“ would have taken three quarters of a year.
The children were extremely critical at the premiere of the film. They criticized the flecks on the cells, and were somewhat shocked to hear their voices in combination with the animation film characters. One girl was disappointed that the film was "only" eight minutes long. Whereby, I had always told them, that it was already a feat to produce a one-minute film.
Afterwards I spoke with the children about their remarks. Through the discussion it became clear that the children had spontaneously reacted during the first viewing.
I worked approximately 400 hours on the animation film, but that shouldn't deter teachers or students from starting an animation film project. One can also get by with substantially less effort.