This scene is a bit different from many of the other scenes I was in charge of for the thesis film. First, in the fact that it's only got one shot in it. Just FLOP_CT1. It's both a shot and a scene at the same time, because after the long build up and tension building, this is meant to be a sort of finale shot. As such, it was easier to think of it as its own seperate scene and shot from everything else, giving it a little extra attention. Not only that, but for this shot, I actually had to pull back and remove a large amount of animation. 

For most shots, you want the characters to move fluidly, to seem natural but stylized so they fit into the bigger aesthetic of the film itself. But for this specific scene, my group and I wanted to really emphasize the cat's discomfort at the sweater he was suddenly wearing, and capture that odd little reaction that cats have when you put clothes on them. Which called for a different style and look for the animation. 

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As you can see from the video reference above, cats become rather stiff and almost doll-like when you put them in a clothing item they do not enjoy. It completely incapacitates them, and makes it almost impossible for them to remain standing. Of course, you can get your cat used to clothes like this, but if you simply put a sweater on a cat that's never worn one before, this is nine times out of ten going to be the reaction you get from them. The back is almost rigidly straight, the head barely moves, and it's like the legs of the cat become sticks instead of functional limbs. And it was this odd behavior that caused me to struggle with this scene so much.
Initially, when I animated this, I attempted to move all parts of the cat even a little bit, to make the animal seem alive, and more fluid. And while it did work, to some extent, it looked wrong. The cat looked much too happy in the sweater. It was moving around fine. I took a break to watch some cat videos, both to destress and to help me possibly figure out what it was that I was doing wrong, and that's when I started really noticing the stiffness in the way the cats flopped over. ​

With a new idea and some fun references, I began removing animation from the cat, one piece at a time, slowly returning him somewhat to his default "t-pose" position that the cat started in. With his legs no longer animated, he looked silly, and stiff, and like he was uncomfortable. Removing the animation on his spine, except for the tail, gave the impression of a tense and very confused animal, and finally, I removed the animation I'd placed on his head, leaving only his eyes, ears, and mouth moving. When he did have a moving head and neck, it gave the impression that he was capable of looking around with the sweater shifting on his body, which most cats cannot do when placed in a sweater like this. It was yet again too comfortable looking.

Once I removed about 75% of the animation I'd added to the cat, I was finally happy with the result I was getting. He looked stiff, uncomfortable, confused, and agitated, but also frozen. Not only that, but the exaggerated complete stillness of many parts of his body made the actual flop much funnier. The timing for that flop had to be super precise. Too soon and the cat looked like it died, too late and it wasn't funny anymore. I moved around the timing of the flop several times after finally getting the look of the cat to a good space, asking all of my group members for their opinions on when it should happen. I think we hit the comedic timing for this shot rather well. 

Despite the struggles I had pulling back on my animation and simply letting the minimal movement speak for itself, I had a lot of fun on this shot, and it was also a great way to learn some new ways to tweak and adjust my animation for different types of shots, emotions, and jokes. ​​​​​​​​​​