DREAMCAT’s 3-Year Hybrid Journey: Ditching the Monster to Find the True Self DREAMCAT is an incredible short film that blends live-action footage with hand-drawn 2D cel animation. Created through a nearly three-year collaboration between Düsseldorf-based studio MAKE MAMI PROUD and Brussels-based animator Joost Jansen, this project is a true labor of love.

Initial Concept and Scrapping Two Weeks of Hand-Drawn Work Originally, director Daniel “Danny” Bartels drafted the script around a classic hero’s journey: a dark monster takes over an artist’s life, and the main character, Dreamcat, shows up at the very end to save the day. Animator Joost Jansen spent about two weeks sketching and animating a moth-octopus hybrid monster covered in tentacles and pink spots.

However, after reviewing the cut in December 2023, the team realized the monster made its entrance way too early and had zero connection to Joost’s real-life persona. By March 2024, they made the bold call to scrap the monster entirely. Instead, Joost dug into recurring characters from his sketchbooks to represent different sides of his inner self: a kid wearing a Dreamcat hat, his feminine side embodied by a round-headed woman, and a pushy boss constantly nagging about deadlines. The character Dreamcat was also promoted to a full-time companion traveling right alongside Joost throughout the entire film.

On-Location Filming Challenges in Brussels The live-action portion was shot over three days in September 2023 in Brussels—mostly late at night and early in the morning—along with a single underwater shoot day in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Not being a traditional live-action production crew, the team ran into a few hurdles along the way. Setting up lighting in the forest took four whole hours instead of the planned 30 minutes, causing them to miss several key shot timings.

To compensate for the missing live-action footage, the director converted about five scenes originally meant for simple linework overlays into fully animated sequences. That quick pivot meant Joost had to put in roughly ten extra days of drawing.

Blending 2D Animation with Live-Action Jakob Saretz, the project’s lead artist, took on the challenge of seamlessly marrying the live-action frames with Joost’s cel animation:

• Spatial depth handling: For forest shots, the Quick Depth 3 plugin extracted depth-of-field data to match the 3D camera setup in After Effects. This kept the focal length of the 2D linework perfectly in sync with the real-world background.
• Lighting interaction: In the studio scenes, an AI tool called Relight helped recalculate lighting on real surface textures like desks and sketchbooks. Whenever Dreamcat’s torch flared up, the animated light reflected naturally onto the real physical objects in the room.
• Crafting it by hand: Every single animation frame was drawn by hand, frame by frame. AI technology served strictly as a technical assistant during compositing—never for generating imagery or motion.

Post-Production Tweaks While Jakob took a three-month leave in 2025, Joost took the initiative to revamp the film’s ending. Instead of a traditional camera pan up to the sky, he designed a fighter jet carrying all the characters blasting right off the street. This move brought the characters much closer to the screen, highlighting the unique emotions of each alter ego.

Additionally, the “Jedi shot”—a scene featuring floating rocks in the forest with 3D effects—was cut down from nearly 4 seconds to just 2.4 seconds. Director Danny felt that showing off too much 3D flair at that moment disrupted the scene’s quiet, reflective mood of personal recovery.

The soundtrack, composed by Niklas Vinken (2WEI Music), pulled the narrative structure together and elevated the film’s overall emotional impact.

The Numbers Behind a Passion Project MAKE MAMI PROUD broke down the sheer workload involved in making this happen:

• Joost Jansen spent about 50 working days on animation alone.
• The studio team logged 532 work hours (including 190 hours from Jakob).
• The film was wrapped in August 2026, exactly three years after the first day of shooting.

DREAMCAT stands as a testament to balancing commercial work with personal creative passion, proving what happens when creators are willing to scrap what doesn’t work to build something truly authentic.