Qiaoyu Liao's Stop-Motion Film Suuugar! Turns a Cheesecake Mishap into a Meditation on Distraction

Qiaoyu Liao's graduate film Suuugar! uses clay stop-motion to tell the story of a squirrel who, while baking a cheesecake, mistakenly pours sugar into her tea, drinks it, and forgets the cake until the oven timer reminds her of the missing ingredient. The film is a humorous take on everyday distraction, a theme Liao finds deeply relatable. Liao, originally from China, studied traditional Chinese painting in Shanghai before earning an MA in Character Animation at Central Saint Martins in London, where she discovered stop-motion. She shot the film from a top-down perspective, a technique she first used in her earlier short Jamming!, to achieve a flat, illustration-like look. To add depth, she employed a multiplane set with separate transparent layers for background, character, and foreground props, creating a subtle three-dimensional effect while maintaining a two-dimensional composition. Clay was chosen for its ability to retain handmade traces and imperfections, which Liao sees as central to stop-motion's charm. Before animating, she filmed herself acting out each shot as live-action reference to capture natural timing and reactions. Liao hopes viewers will get distracted alongside the squirrel and recognize the broader comment on how instant gratification can pull us away from what matters. The film is a personal, playful exploration of ordinary moments.