Animation (with Advanced Practice) MA

Course overview

Our MA Animation is an intensive, practice-based programme which will develop your range of skills in animated performance to allow you to meet industry demands and developments. At the same time, opportunities for enterprise and academic research make a broad range of outcomes available to you.

This programme has a strong focus on preparing you for working in the industry as a 3D character animator. It has been designed by staff with a wealth of industry experience and an in-depth knowledge of character animation for film, television and games.

There are three routes you can choose from to gain an MA Animation:

• full-time - 2 years with advanced practice (September and January start)
• full-time - 1 year (September start) or 16 months (January start)
• part-time - 2 years.

How you learn

You learn about concepts and methods primarily through keynote lectures and tutorials using case studies and examples. Lectures include presentations from guest speakers from industry. Critical reflection is key to successful problem solving and essential to the creative process. You develop your own reflective practice at an advanced level, then test and assess your solutions against criteria that you develop in the light of your research.

How you are assessed

The programme assessment strategy has been designed to assess your subject specific knowledge, cognitive and intellectual skills and transferable skills applicable to the workplace. The strategy ensures that you are provided with formative assessment opportunities throughout the programme which support your summative assessments. There is a mix of practical work (usually in the form of a portfolio), poster and viva presentations, reflective blogs, written reports and an animated piece, with dialogue, that is developed to a professional industry standard quality. Formative feedback is typically given during lectures, tutorials and summative feedback using on-line methods. The assessments can include individual or group work. The assessment criteria, where appropriate, will include assessment of presentation skills and report writing.

Career opportunities

We prepare you for a career in industry. In addition to your taught classes, we create opportunities for you to meet and network with our industry partners through events such as our ExpoSeries, which showcases student work to industry. ExpoTees is the pinnacle of the ExpoSeries with over 100 businesses from across the UK coming to the campus to meet our exceptional students, with a view to recruitment.

The one-year programme is a great option if you want to gain a traditional MSc qualification. The two-year master’s degree with advanced practice enhances your qualification by adding a vocational or research based internship to the one-year master’s programme. A vocational internship is a great way to gain work experience and give your CV a competitive edge. A research internship provides you with the opportunity to develop your analytical, team-working, research and academic skills by working alongside a research team in an academic setting. We guarantee a research internship, but cannot guarantee a vocational internship. We will, however, provide you with practical support and advice on how to find and secure your own vocational internship position should you prefer this type of internship.

At least a UK 2.2 honours degree in animation or equivalent.