# Week 2 — Tuesday, September 1 ### Project 1 Research due · Proposal sign-off · Production begins --- ## Focus Lock the source, lock the plan, start building. Your research document is the map for the next four weeks — the technique list inside it is also the menu you will pick Project 2 from. --- ## Due today — before 9:00 AM **Project 1 — Research (10 points)** PDF or Canvas page, 4–8 pages with images: 1. Source identification with link 2. Why this piece — and how it connects to your portfolio gap 3. Technical breakdown — how you think it was made, with your guesses marked as guesses 4. Aesthetic breakdown — the decisions that make it read 5. Reference collection, cited 6. **Technique list** — every technique the rebuild requires, marked *have it* / *partial* / *do not have it* 7. Faithful or restyled — which approach, and why 8. Production plan through Week 6 --- ## Bring to class - The research document, ready to present - The source itself, ready to play or display at full size - Your track statement and portfolio gap statement in progress --- ## In class **Research presentations.** Each student walks through their teardown. Ten minutes, then questions. **Proposal sign-off.** Instructor approval on source, scope, and approach. Scope gets adjusted here if it needs to — this is the cheapest possible moment to cut. **Technique list review.** We go through your *do not have it* items and rank them: which are essential to the rebuild, which are optional, and which are likely to eat a week if you are not careful. **Reference standards.** How to gather, organize, and cite reference. Where the good breakdown material lives for your track — designer interviews, GDC talks, studio blogs, published production files. **Production begins.** The rest of the block is supervised work. --- ## Before next week 1. **Begin production.** By next Tuesday you should have breakdown boards, structural analysis, or first-pass build work to show — something visual. 2. **Attack one technique from your *do not have it* list.** Pick the one that is most essential and least understood. Do not save the hard parts for later; later is Week 5 and you will be out of time. 3. **Finish the career audit and portfolio review package** — due next Tuesday, Week 3. 4. **Keep a process log.** Screenshots, notes, dead ends. You will need this for the postmortem and for Project 2, and reconstructing it later is miserable. --- ## Note — start with the part you cannot do The natural order is to build the easy parts first, because they feel productive. This is a trap and it catches almost everyone. The easy parts will still be easy in Week 5. The hard part is the one that might turn out to be impossible, or to require a different approach entirely, or to take four days instead of four hours. You want to find that out now, while there is still time to change the plan. Spend this week on the thing you are least sure about.