# Week 1 — Tuesday, August 25 ### Orientation · Career Audit · Portfolio Review · Track Selection --- ## Focus Decide what this semester is for. By the end of today you should know your track, know roughly what your portfolio is missing, and have two or three candidate sources for Project 1. Nothing is due today. Everything starts today. --- ## Due today Nothing. Come as you are. --- ## Bring to class - Your existing online portfolio, open and ready to show - A laptop or access to a lab machine - Some sense of what you want to be doing in two years, even a rough one --- ## In class **Course structure and expectations.** How the weekly consultation works, what the three projects are and how they chain together, what the grading actually measures. **Portfolio walkthroughs.** Each student presents their existing portfolio to the room. We look at it together, on a projector, at full size. Expect direct feedback — this is the first critique of the semester and it sets the tone. **Career self-audit.** Started in class, finished on your own. Software, techniques, two-year goal, gap. **Track selection.** Individual consultation on which track to commit to, based on the audit and the portfolio gap. **Project 1 source browsing.** With your track chosen, start looking at the curated source lists on the Project 1 page. For motion graphics and title design that means browsing [Art of the Title](https://www.artofthetitle.com/) — start with their *Top 10 Title Sequences* features for a given year. **Scoping conversation.** What can realistically be finished at a portfolio standard in five weeks, and how that differs from what you think can be. --- ## Before next week 1. **Finish the career self-audit.** Software, techniques, two-year goal, gap. 2. **Complete the portfolio review** — the seven questions on the Career Audit page. Write the gap statement paragraph. 3. **Choose your Project 1 source.** Narrow to one, with a backup. Read the scoping guidance on the Project 1 page before you commit. 4. **Start the Project 1 research document.** The full teardown is due Week 2 — that is next Tuesday, so begin tonight. 5. **Read** the 2026 Industry Skills Report if you have not already, and the Track Resources page for your track. --- ## Note — on choosing a source The instinct is to pick the most impressive thing you can find. Resist it. The right source is one where you can look at it and say *"I can see roughly how most of this was done, and there are two or three parts I genuinely cannot figure out."* Those two or three parts are the entire value of the project. If you can see how all of it was done, it will teach you nothing. If you can see how none of it was done, you will spend five weeks stuck. A 90-second title sequence, one 8-second shot, one mechanic, one character design. Small and complete.