I made same changes to the animatic and cut a few scenes out that I thought weren't adding anything to the film. The total length is now 3.30 minutes, which is one minute shorter than the earlier version which is great.. I think it tightens the film nicely, especially around the visual motives of feet and eyes. I'm glad that I managed to shorten it without losing anything important. I quickly shortened the music myself, but I already communicated with Enya and she said it is fine to shorten the music properly (and also to take out the bird sounds in the background).
Here is the updated version:
I will get as much feedback on it as I can to see if it works and can possibly be tightened up even more. I think 3.30 minutes is achievable but it will still be tight to animate it all within the next 1.5 months. To save some time animating, I want to animate the two transition scenes (bus to nature and back) very loosely and with ink (and no tight pencil lines), which makes sense in the context.
Good news is that two students, Renata and Magnus, got back to me and said they want to help me out with some stuff, which I am very grateful for. Renata will animate the smoke for the first scene, and I need to organise to know what I can delegate to Magnus in the coming week.