Animation Workshops

On behalf of the BVR, I have been running annual one-week animation workshops in various animation techniques for German prize-winners of the European youth creativ competition since 2006.

The workshop results were presented as part of a final presentation either as a film or as a performance like The Spinning Animation Show.

Each workshop referred to the specific motto of the summer academy, such as ‘Imagine’, ‘Balance’, ‘Bridges’, ‘Flow’ or ‘Oikos’.

participants and group size: 6 – 12 pupils aged 12 – 19 years)
duration: 6 days, with final presentation
animation technique: cartoon, cut-out, stop motion, pixilation, paint-on-glass and experimental
workshop place: International Educational Institute Scheersberg, Germany
staff: 1 pedagogic assistant

I held a stop motion workshop commissioned by the Goethe-Institut in Amman in cooperation with the Royal Film Commission Jordan (RFC).

Participants built figures out of wire and gained experience in stop motion animation and animation film recording techniques.

language: English
participants and group size: 12 participants, animation trainees and professionals
duration: 3 days
animation technique: stop motion with puppets made from wire and plasticine
workshop place: Royal Film Commission Jordan (RFC)
staff: 1 assistant

A Zoetrope workshop with a final presentation of the results under the name ‘The Spinning Animation Show’ was commissioned by the city of Straubing on the occasion of the celebrations “800 years of the new city of Straubing”.

Together with the city archive and the State Technical and Vocational Secondary School FOSBOS Straubing, I developed a 40-minute Spinning Animation Show called The Spinning History as part of a six-month Zoetrope workshop. In the elaborately designed audio-visual show, the history of the city of Straubing was impressively presented by students.

The participants of the workshop created 80 animation loops on historical events in the city, each with 15 drawings on paper strips or discs, on records or on transparent Plexiglas. They themselves presented the results in an elaborate audiovisual show with eight optical devices, e.g. Zoetropes, Praxinoscopes or on turntables in combination with stroboscope and UV light.

participants and group size: 30 creative trainees
duration: 6 months with 4 workshops at the school and continuous remote support of the ongoing project from Kassel
animation technique: animation loops with 2D (drawing, painting, foto-collage) and 3D materials (Plasticine, folded paper, grains, cotton wool, strings, etc.)
workshop place: Technical College for Design FOSBOS Straubing, design craft department
staff: cooperation with the regular teachers for design at FOSBOS

Watch a making-of by FOSBOS Straubing (German) or read the articles History of a City in Animation (German) or When the Pictures learned to move (German).

With the drawing artist and co-director of VIRTUOS VIRTUELL, Maja Oschmann, I held a one-day workshop on the topic of music visualisation.

Under the direction of Maja, the participants drew with charcoal and black ink on paper. They visualized their emotions to the music they were listening to.

In the second half of the day, I took over the workshop. The participants drew, modelled or collaged animation cycles on strips of paper. Accompanied by a participant’s live interpretation of the animations on violin, the other attendees viewed their results on a Zoetrope.

participants and group size: 20 educationists of museums, theatres and art galleries
duration: 1 day
animation technique: painting on paper to music, animation on paper stripes
workshop place: Kinder-Künste-Zentrum, Berlin

Photos from the work process