For the past few weeks I've been storyboarding.  I had most of the images in my mind from the beginning--  But as I drew it out I realized that I needed to fully flesh out certain aspects, like the blocking/camera placement/making sure each shot directly flows into and influences the next shot.  I've been searching for and reading through a LOT of storyboarding resources to learn new information/refresh my brain on the topic.

Here are a few I really enjoyed:

http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/storyboards_bradbird_chrisroman.pdf
^^^Brad Bird's storyboarding guides/references from when he worked on The Simpsons/King of the Hill

http://www.floobynooby.com/comp1.html
^^^A collection of storyboards from films/cartoons with tons of information about composition, character blocking, lines of action, scene structure, etc

I've been going back and revising scenes I already drew out to try and improve them-- so far I'm about 75% of the way done with the storyboard, and it'll basically already be an animatic once I'm done.  I'm going to record some temp voices myself to pace out the frames and work out the general timing.

The main thing I'm concerned with right now is making sure that I get all crucial information about the characters/plot to the audience without taking too long.  I don't want to end up with a plan for a 7-minute animation that I won't have time to produce.  I also don't want it to feel like the story is frantically rushing to get to the conclusion-- but luckily cartoons tend to be fast-paced, so I should be fine.

This weekend I'm going to take pictures for live-action background plates.  Since the story takes place at night, I'm going to take long-exposure pictures at night and edit them as needed.  (I'll probably apply a paintbrush filter in photoshop and push colors into a deep purple/blue/orange/yellow color scheme for a Halloween-y feel.)