[EricH]

Originally Posted by jdiwnab

First off, to communicate what you want to make, you need to make a storyboard. This can be a detailed or as basic as you want or need to communicate the idea. Development sketches and dicussions will help refine your idea.

I think the storyboard is required for the competition animation. Might be a good idea to keep it around. I believe that you get a general guideline for topic at Kickoff, but I don't think there is any problem with learning the software or trying out ideas. Maybe give yourself six weeks to do an animation for last year's animation?