I decided to animate the wacky wavy balloon arm guy in passes. The first pass is animating the body movement which is a straightforward wave. The head however drags giving some overlap at the extremes. The arms are the bulk of the action in the scene. Air billows through the tubes causing them to wave like a flag. The animation is being done straight ahead and I am looking at plenty of wacky wavy reference to see what the arms tend to do in real life. The billowing air causes an outward flowing wave then the arm snaps straight and starts to fall as the next wave of air billows out.
The possibilities of arm shapes are endless and my first pass was too stiff. The version of the COVID Dystopia scene in the film now is rather stiff with very little motion happening in slow motion. It actually works but I have to give this a shot to liven things up. If this version doesn’t work I can always fall back on what I already have.