Documetentary Animation// Waiting to start animating again

I've animated about 30seconds of the animation my director has given me to complete before our deadline for this animation project, which is approaching quickly; however currently I'm unable to continue animating. Our background artist Malachi hasn't completed our backgrounds yet, which I've been chasing him up about for the past three weeks or so; so I'm unable to begin animating those segments, because I'm not sure which characters need to be placed and how large/small they have to be in regards to their surroundings/environments. I'll begin drawing out the remaining segments backgrounds myself if I don't get Malachi's backgrounds by this weekend...