# Week 13 — Tuesday, November 17 ### Consultation · Production · Blocking and first-pass critique --- ## Focus The structure exists. We check that it works before it gets refined, because refining a structure that does not work is wasted time. --- ## Due today — before 9:00 AM **Blocking pass, greybox, or first-pass build** — whatever "the structure exists" means in your track. **Weekly progress report.** --- ## Bring to class - The first-pass build - Your reference board, for comparison - Breakdown captures collected so far - A list of what you know is still missing --- ## In class **Structural critique.** Does the piece read? Is the composition, pacing, layout, or system architecture working at this rough stage? Problems found now are cheap; the same problems found in Week 15 are not. **Technical problem solving.** Individual instruction on whatever is blocking each student. By this point in a project there is usually one specific thing eating disproportionate time. **Capture check.** Are you collecting the breakdown material from your Week 12 plan, or has it slipped? It always slips. This is the check. **Thanksgiving planning.** Next week is Week 14 and the first draft is due. The holiday follows immediately after, Wednesday through Sunday. We talk about what realistically gets done in that window. **Supervised production.** --- ## Before next week 1. **Complete the first draft.** The whole piece at rough standard — every part present. Due next Tuesday. 2. **Write the self-critique** — the three weakest parts, named honestly. 3. **Draft your plan for the remaining two weeks**, including the holiday. --- ## Note — the middle of a project Week 13 is where projects feel worst. The novelty is gone, the structure exists but nothing looks good yet, and the finish line is far enough away that it is not pulling you forward. This is normal and it is not a signal about the work. It is a signal about where you are in the process — every artist working on anything of length passes through it. The move is to stop evaluating and keep producing. Judgment at this stage is unreliable in a specific, predictable direction: everything looks worse than it is, because you are comparing an unfinished thing against a finished mental image. Get to the first draft. Evaluate then.