After a discussion/critique with other students last night, I'm implementing the following to tighten up the story and make the whole piece a bit better.
The idea had been to this point that the main character has just been born and is afraid of his new environment. The basis for the changes that follow is he isn't afraid, but filled with wonder. Not only is this a 'nicer' story, but also more cohesive and easier to animate. It gets rid of about a third of the beats the piece needs to hit, improving the pacing and helping with the running length.
The overhead shots have been removed as extraneous. I'll use instead over the shoulder shots from the spider's perspective. This also functions to give the spider more screen time and not have him simply show up, deus ex machina, at the end.
Initial Sequence (pan in): add the spider running across the alley. He's backlit to add some mystery. Shot ends with him sitting in shadow showing his luminous eyes, pointed at the poster.
Chatacter still falls out of the poster and forms same as before.
After he falls apart from being surprised at the light going on, he reforms but has lost his head. Add a shot of him feeling for his head.
Instead of having him bang on the poster trying to get in, the shots then go to him crawling on the ground looking for his head. Losing the motivation of fear makes the sequence unnecessary, and gets rid of how many beats I needed to hit to make the piece work.
The remainder stays the same, with the spider returning the head.
To conculde: we add the spider at the beginning to introduce him earlier. We remove the sequence where he tries to get back into the poster (although I've done the most blocking there, it isn't actually needed to tell the story of a character being born), and simply have him losing his head.
Note: added to this will be several closeups of the mechanics of him moving.
