D&AD’s 2026 AI & Creativity Report: Human Judgement Remains the Creative Advantage
August 18, 2026
Brussels director/animator Joost Jansen and his alter ego Dreamcat star in this intimate, multi-layered (and mildly insane) artist portrait from director Daniel Bartels and Düsseldorf studio Make Mami Proud.
Daniel Bartels: The film explores something the creative industries rarely discuss openly: what it costs to make art for a living, and what turns up when you love your work a little too much. Everybody lives with demons. This is a film about an artist who gave his a face.
DREAMCAT began as an internal passion project with a simple ambition: to find a new shape for the artist portrait. Joost Jansen has been a close collaborator and friend of the studio for years, so making him the subject rather than the hired hand felt like the only honest way to approach it.
“Joost drew his inner world directly onto the documentary record of his outer one — moods became color, pressure became creatures, thought became line.”
The central production challenge was one we couldn’t have anticipated. We storyboarded the concept, shared it with Joost early, and shot three days in Brussels — his studio, his workplace, and the places he goes when he isn’t working.
What came back was honest and completely flat: a man at a desk. Everything that made him worth filming was still inside his head, and no camera was going to reach it. The film only became true when Joost began animating over the footage himself.
Working in Toon Boom Harmony, cel by cel, Joost drew his inner world directly onto the documentary record of his outer one — moods became color, pressure became creatures, thought became line. That meant rebuilding the entire visual concept mid-production and trusting an outcome none of us could previsualize.
No AI was used at any stage of production — a deliberate position rather than a workflow preference, given that the film is a defence of the very craft it documents.
Production: Make Mami Proud
Director: Daniel Bartels
Animator: Joost Jansen
Cinematographer: Jan Heinrich
Editor: Philipp Schneider
Lead Artist: Jakob Saretz
Production: Paula Revers, Quentin Abschlag, Thorben Winkler, Mario Da Silva
Colorist: Moritz Bastian
Visual Effects: Till Koenig, Isabel Kaeppele, Quentin Abschlag
Text: Manuel Iljitsch
Music: 2WEI Music
Composer: Niklas Vinken
Music Supervision: Jan Salander
Sound design/mix: Dario Albiez
Toolkit: Toon Boom Harmony, After Effects
