Goudron le chat de la construction

Animation

MARCH-APRIL 2025

Programs used

Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro

Project Description

This was a project for my audio/video course. I decided to try out a new style of animation, one where the artist themselves is part of the scene, as you can see my mouse moving the character across the screen. It started as a way to avoid frame by frame as I would not have had the time to finish if I used that technique, but it turned out to be a lot of fun to create. It adds a sense of comedy as well and I become an actor as well. My own mouse movements can convey emotions too!

Process

Throughout the course, I learnt many different editing techniques as well as improved my sound design skills. One of my favourite new tools to use was keying and green screens. I used it in this project to be able to not only move the character around on the canvas in Photoshop, but to then also be able to move it around within after effects to better follow the irl videos I had. I chose blue instead of green because the vest’s yellow accents were too similar to lime green.

I started by recording the real videos of potholes first and then came up with a quick storyboard to decide what I wanted Goudron to do. I then drew her different expressions in Photosjop and screen recorded myself moving her around. With those recordings, I could then overlay them onto the videos in after effects.

I used Adobe stock sound effects in Premiere Pro. I also got my brother to voice a “Wow!” for me because why not.

Overall, the project turned out quite nice but my next challenge would be to master pacing, as some of the scenes lasted too long and lost viewer’s attention along the way.