Masters degrees in Animation equip postgraduates with the skills to devise, create and develop animations (the illusion of movement) for numerous platforms, particularly film.
Taught MA, MFA and MSc degrees are typical for the field, the latter focussing mainly on computerised animations. Entry requirements normally include an appropriate undergraduate degree such as Graphic Design.
The MA Digital and Visual Communication offers study in a broad range of digital and visual communication theory and practice.
The Course attracts students from a wide range of disciplines and from all over the world, giving it a strong international flavour. The current cohort comes from as far afield as China, Nigeria, India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Poland, Greece and Germany, as well as the UK.
The course gives you the opportunity to develop your creative design abilities but also equips you with marketing and branding skills and knowledge essential for a career in the competitive market place that is International Visual Communications.
Areas of specialism are:
This course is designed to develop your creative and intellectual abilities through the investigation of a bespoke project aligned to your own particular interests and aspirations. The course is intended to promote ‘Thinking practitioners’ who will be well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities available within the growing global industry of Digital & Visual Communication.
The course attracts students from all over the world as well as from the UK. Current students hail from China, India, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Germany and Greece. This course has a truly international perspective reflecting the global nature of the visual communications sector.
"Studying in an artistic environment where different design disciplines are working close together and the well-balanced level of guidance and independency really helped me to investigate and improve my work in graphic communications." Yvonne John
"As an Illustrator studying for my Master degree, The MA Digital and Visual Communications course and its layout has allowed me to further develop my work and to get it out there and more importantly noticed whilst giving me a greater knowledge and understanding of professional Illustration. As well as offering me excellent opportunities to communicate with those in the world of commercial publishing, This is largely down to the expert experience and brilliance of the staff and how they run the course." Matt Jones
“The course is Interesting and it broadens the mind of any MA student, especially to those who are involve in Advertising programme.” Mohammed Abba Aliyu
Employment opportunities include:
You will gain the intellectual and creative confidence to enable you to embrace the challenges and rewards of the Global Digital & Visual Communications industry. Through the investigation of a personally designed project you will have the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge to a Masters Level, culminating in a showcase exhibition and portfolio. Opportunities exist to further develop your portfolio through PhD study within the department. From the 2010 cohort three students have progressed successfully to our PhD programme.
The MA Animation Production sees observation, drawing and an understanding of the traditional principles of animation as fundamental, but these are critically contextualised in relation to technology, history, theory and professional/studio practice.
The overriding objective is to enable all of our Animation students to see yourselves as part of a ‘community of practice’ (that includes research and critique, and the building of a ‘production culture’), existing not as atomised students ‘doing their own thing’, but as part of a meaningful whole.
The overall aim of our course is to enable you to pursue your interests and specialism – whether 2D/drawn, CG, stop motion or other forms of animation – and produce excellent work that synthesises the ‘strands’ of theory, practice and professionalism.
We have detailed information on the course structure and content on our website: https://aub.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-animation/course-journey/
AUB Animation has achieved alumni success with our graduates going on to work at Aardman, Framestore, Pixar, EA Games and the Moving Picture Company and many other companies. Our BA films have won awards and recognition in the British Animation Awards and Royal Television Society Awards and at festivals around the world. We are proud of the network of AUB graduates who are now employed in Animation – many of whom return to talk to current students.
A number of graduate films are linked to below or can be found on our course gallery
Our studios work in a way that mirrors industry with students working together in a high energy atmosphere.
Our state-of-the-art animation studios provide students with an individual workstation and light box. The course has its own computer suite with specialist software.
Animation Hardware
12 Field light boxes | Rostrum cameras | Dell Workstations | Stop Motion booths | Linetesting workstations | Wacom Intuos 4/5 | Wacom Cintiq workstation monitors | Professional lighting Set (Dedo/Kino Flo) | Canon 650D HD/SD Stills Cameras + sundries | Motion control rig | High Speed A3 sheet feed scanners integrated into Harmony | A3 Epson GT-2000 scanners | 24TB Isilon IQ 6000 Clustered Storage | Renderfarm running PipelineFx Qube 6.4 integrated into Maya
You’ll also have access to the following:
Online Avid Symphony Nitris DX Edit Suite | Avid Teaching Lab + 16 Workstations for Media Composer & ProTools | Avid Unity ISIS 32TB Server to all Edit Suites | 3 Avid ProTools Edit Suites + Audio Control Surfaces | Sound recording booths
Animation Software
Toon Boom Harmony | Adobe Creative Master Suite 6 | Autodesk Maya | Stop Motion Pro | Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro | Toon Boom Story Board Pro | Nuke | Mari | Zbrush | Extensive library of software tutorial DVDs | DVD/Blu-ray film library
More details and photographs of the specialist studios are available on our website: https://aub.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-animation/resources/
The Department of Animation was established at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2006 and since 2007 it has offered a two-year MA in Animation (taught in English). The Animation MA programme is taught by Professor Priit Pärn and Associate Professor Olga Pärn. The main goal of the programme is to successfully educate creators of animated films, providing them with theoretical knowledge and practical skills. The further aim is to contribute to the global development of animation as an art form.
Animation is a thriving medium and developing at a greater pace than ever before. It has become part of mass culture, as well as one of its principal forms. Animation can be seen in digital screen graphics, computer games, music videos, films, etc. The basis for any film – including animated film – is the story. The greatest problem in the film world is the lack of good stories. In most of the world’s animation schools, students are not taught the art of good story writing. This is something that sets our programme apart. We place an emphasis on the story and teach Professor Pärn’s unique methodology for creating film scripts.
This is an international programme and instruction is conducted in English. The studies are conducted as lectures, seminars and master classes, as well as individual and tutorial classes. Generally, tutorial classes make up 60% to 70% of the curriculum. Other classes are divided between practical and independent work. Studies are conducted in cooperation with almost all the schools of higher education in Tallinn, Estonia. The students actively participate in lectures at the Baltic Film and Media School (BFM) and Tallinn University. Cooperation also takes place with the Estonian Animation Union and Estonia’s larger studios. The programme’s instructors and lecturers are active artists and specialists whose work is regularly presented at international events.
Student films have won over 50 awards in international festivals. Former students of our MA programme include the internationally recognised filmmakers Kristjan Holm, Martinus Daane Klemet, Anu Laura Tuttelberg (Estonia), Edmunds Jansons, Zane Oborenko (Latvia), Michael Frey (Swizerland), Lucija Mrzljak (Croatia), Teemu Hotti and Heta Jäälinoja (Finland). The Animation department is the perfect melting pot for students from different countries. Our current students are from 15 countries.
Upon completion of the MA in Animation programme, students have acquired in-depth theoretical and practical animation skills. The students can specialise in specific animation techniques and create individual projects in the appropriate technique. After graduation, the students are qualified to realise themselves as animated film creators, professionals in creative industries or teachers in their field. Students who have completed the Master’s programme are also qualified to continue their studies and pursue a doctoral degree.
Lectures, seminars, intensive modules and projects are intertwined in the two-year MA. Essay writing, script writing, animating, directing, editing, sound engineering and research are core activities to be learnt and practiced throughout the courses, leading to a final diploma-film project.
More information: https://www.artun.ee/masters/animation/
The Animation programme is a world leader in practice and research, with a commitment to broadening the understanding of our complex discipline. Established over 30 years ago, the programme has an international reputation that places it at the forefront of the discipline. Within the programme there are three distinct pathways: Documentary Animation, Experimental Animation and Narrative Animation, one of which students select as part of their application.
The programme’s location within a visually sophisticated, multidisciplinary art and design school, rather than a film school, is crucial in the development of creative and critical thinking, research skills and expanded discipline expertise that’s applied to ideas, styles, genres and technological approaches. Both the MA and research degrees attract artists and makers from a broad background of disciplines: science, maths, architecture, literature, art history, computing and fine art, as well as communication.
We offer a unique learning and teaching environment, developing the creativity and skills required in an age of rapid cultural and technological change. Our students contribute to this expanding and maturing field of moving image, with core skills centred around directing, narrative and production. We offer an exceptionally stimulating multidisciplinary environment, complemented by the College’s award-winning programmes in art and design. The curriculum allows students to explore the creative slip between diverse forms of moving image: animation, documentary, fiction, process and interactivity. Through innovative, practical research and an understanding of different contexts, traditions and histories, students learn through a potent combination of workshops, lectures and tutorials, while developing their own practice, individually and collaboratively.
Leading practitioners on the programme bring a wide range of practice and research, their excellence of teaching supported by a wide variety of visiting established filmmakers/artists of international reputation. Recent visiting artists have included Stephen Quay, Suzan Pitt, David O’Reilly, John Smith, Nina Sabnani, Hiraki Sawa, Peter Blegvad, Asif Kapadia, Philip Hunt, Nick Park and Jonathan Hodgson.
The Animation programme has a world-leading research environment, attracting funding from, among others, the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Medical Research Council.
Students are encouraged to develop a critical discourse around their subject, as well as building on and challenging notions within their own personal areas of interest or specialism. The programme has an ongoing relationship with the most successful and innovative sectors of the UK animation industry – Blink, Nexus, Studio AKA, Passion Pictures and Hornet – which allows students’ work to be placed within a wider professional context.
The programme offers excellent facilities supported by knowledgeable technical staff, including shooting studios for stop-frame/green screen, sound recording/mixing, digital and film cameras/editing, Cintiqs and an individual desk space for each student in mixed studios within the School of Communication.
The MA programme and research degrees offer a holistic environment that prepares animation artists for a number of roles within gallery- and industry-based animated filmmaking, and provides innovators to the animation professions.
Current students and graduates continue to have a ‘real-world’ impact on animation, pushing the forefront of the practice and producing innovative and highly accomplished work. Much of this has been demonstrated through the accolades bestowed on the programme, as well as by individual student achievement through winning awards such as 5 BAFTAs, the Royal Television Society, the Adobe Achievement Award, and Jerwood Moving Image Drawing Prizes. Exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, together with film screenings at festivals and broadcast licenses with television and Internet channels, allow students to increases their professional profile.
Our MA Animation course builds on our long history of providing highly regarded animation education at UCA Farnham, and will provide you with a strong interdisciplinary approach to the animated form. We offer a dynamic environment in which you'll be able to engage with the animated form in traditional 2D and 3D stop motion, as well as the theoretical aspects of the discipline.
This course attracts students from around the world and has a rich cultural mix. You'll approach animation as a broad discipline and be encouraged to engage with experimental and speculative approaches to making through a range of projects, which will culminate in the production of a high quality animated film.
MA Animation at our Farnham campus has a long history of nurturing creative, innovative and challenging animators and has an incomparable alumni. This course will support you in developing practical skills while fostering a high standard of diverse critical approaches.
On this course you'll be encouraged to take risks, explore and develop your interests, and exchange, debate and discuss your ideas. You'll be expected to produce original and exciting films during your time with us, and explore the wide range of creative possibilities of frame-by -frame filmmaking. We'll encourage you to be open to these possibilities and to develop new skills, as well as building on your existing ones.
Your studies will be supported by internationally renowned staff on a course that is proud to have no house style. We'll encourage you to explore your own natural inclinations - whether narrative, experimental, documentary or fiction. This will enable you to establish yourself as a rounded professional who can formulate ideas in a sophisticated framework.
Our course uses a wide range of technical resources that cover the whole spectrum of contemporary animation practice, from traditional drawn and stop motion animation to the latest digitally generated imagery.
Part-time students are normally taught on a Wednesday but sometimes field trips, study visits or other events take place on other days of the week. You should check before enrolling if you have concerns about the days your course will be taught on.
Our course actively encourages you to gain industry experience through a wide variety of approaches. These include work experience, internships, studio visits, commissions and competitions and entry into major film festivals.
We've built an extensive network of industry connections, giving us access to high-profile visiting lecturers, and to commissions, competitions and exciting work placement opportunities.
Our industry links include:
-Aardman Animations
-STUDIO AKA
-Passion Pictures
-Mackinnon & Saunders
-Nexus
-Framestore
-Cinesite
-The Mill
-ustwo
-Stylorouge
-Blink Productions
-ITV.
Animation is one of the most significant and rapidly expanding media fields. An enormous range of career opportunities exist in animation. These range from the traditional techniques of animation storytelling, drawn to model and CGI animation.
Typical careers in the industry include:
-Directors
-Producers
-Animators (in commercials, films, broadcast, online media and games)
-Editors
-Character designers
-Production designers
-Pre-vis artists
-Compositors
-Storyboard artists
-Post-production.
As one of the pre-eminent animation courses in the world, our sought after alumni have landed many exciting, high-profile roles across the industry - including positions as:
-Animators
-Directors
-Producers
-Designers
-Model makers
-Storyboard artists
-CG animators
-CG riggers.
Visit our Postgraduate Virtual Media Space to find out more about our courses, see what it's like to study at UCA and gain access to our campus virtual tours.
MA 3D Computer Animation is a practice-led course that explores both the theory and practice of digital 3D animation in film, television, games and interactive applications. With new and emerging technologies changing how we make, understand and experience animation, you'll be encouraged to push boundaries and explore the practices of animation from a variety of critical and professional perspectives.
In an era of unparalleled opportunities for skilled visual players and sequential image-makers, you will create, explore and play with 3D digital technologies and develop a specialist personal practice. The animation industry is rapidly evolving, with new developments in real-time animation and immersive digital world-building.
During the course, you’ll create 3D computer animation sequences and assets, both individually and as part of creative teams comprising students from different media disciplines.
The course is delivered across four terms, starting in September and finishing in December the year after. Incorporating a summer break, this is a one-year full-time course (45 taught weeks), delivered over 15 months.
Term 1
1.1 3D Computer Animation Fundamentals (40 Credits)
1.2 Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language (20 Credits)
Terms 2 and 3
2.1 Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques (40 Credits)
2.2 Collaborative Unit (20 Credits)
Term 4
3.1 Final Major Project and Thesis (60 Credits)
Create your own story at the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts!
