Animation BA (Hons)

Overview

Our course combines academic excellence and professional practice, with a focus on producing festival-ready animation, building an online presence and creating an industry- standard showreel to prepare you to work in the industry.

We encourage you to be innovative, creative and push the boundaries of storytelling and artistic style. You will receive a grounding in the fundamental skills of animation, with the opportunity to develop more specialist skills from the second year of study.

You will develop your own distinct style and voice, as well as enhancing your technical and creative knowledge by studying modules such as 2D Animation, Critical Studies and Visual Communication.

Our excellent facilities include dedicated animation, recording and sound studios, graphics studios, computer suites and a suite of Cintiq stations. You will be supported to master professional tools, such as TVPaint, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Our supportive and collaborative studio culture creates a nurturing atmosphere that aims to encourage professional development. Teaching is delivered primarily through demonstration and practical workshop sessions, providing hands-on experience in drawing, script writing, idea generation, visual communication, pre-production, audio production and digital 2D animation practice.

Teaching is delivered primarily through lectures and practical sessions, with access to keynote lectures and support from industry mentors. Practical classes provide hands-on experience of both drawing, idea generation, pre-production and digital 2D animation development. Tutorials are used to provide feedback and a framework for ensuring you see improvements in your work. Additional learning materials are also offered online.

Assessments include regular screenings of artwork and reports for peer, tutor and industry critique. You will be encouraged to produce festival ready animation and a showreel for employment, guided by experts from the animation industry and the teaching team. Industry representatives make regular visits to give presentations and review showreels.

You will normally attend around 12-16 hours of timetabled taught sessions each week, and are expected to undertake at least 24 further hours of directed independent study and assignments as required.

Graduate Careers

Our graduates are working as animators, producers, high-flying VFX technical directors, lead technical runners, compositors, modellers and designers working on TV series and films. They are working with international companies like Double Negative, Ubisoft (Shanghai), Jagex, MPC, The Mill, Blue Zoo, Character Shop, RJDM Animations and Ragdoll Productions and have worked on major films including ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Rises’, 'Les Miserables', 'Superman Man of Steel', 'Thor: The Dark World', 'Ex Machina', 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' and ‘Total Recall’.