BA (Hons) Animation

If you’re keen to forge a career within the world of animation, then look no further than our renowned ba (hons) animation course at uca farnham. 

• Established in 1972 by Academy Award winner Bob Godfrey, ours is one of the best-known and most highly regarded animation courses in the world, with graduates going on to create iconic characters such as Hey Duggee, Peppa Pig, and Compare the Market’s meerkats. Whatever your preferred medium – whether you want to make animated films using CGI, traditional drawing, oil on glass, sand animation, or pixelation – you’ll be encouraged to follow your passions and aim high.  
• To help you achieve this, you’ll have access to our incredible facilities, including a stop motion studio with Dragonframe Capture, professional camera equipment, and stages pre-rigged with grips, stands, and lights. Not to mention computer suites kitted out with the latest Adobe, Toon Boom, and Maya CG software.  
• Along the way, we’ll support you with our extensive knowledge, experience, and industry contacts, providing everything you need to become an innovative storyteller and artist.

What you'll study
The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

Integrated foundation year (if undertaken)

• UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.
• You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Integrated international foundation year (if undertaken)

• For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Foundation Year, based at UCA Farnham to bring students from around the world to one hub of creativity.
• This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.
• You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Year 1
Core units
You will study the following core units:

• Launch- You’ll begin by taking part in a series of interdisciplinary workshops and seminars based around ideas generation, creative practice, and development. This week will help students develop their understanding of creativity and different sources of inspiration via different approaches, concepts, and mediums.
• Animation Principles- This unit will introduce the fundamental principles of animation through a range of traditional and contemporary animation techniques. Complimentary to this, you’ll learn essential drawing and mark-making skills necessary for observing and interpreting the mechanics of movement and gesture.
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion- The unit provides an opportunity for students to explore what is meant by equality, diversity, and inclusion and the implications of these concepts for creative practice. It will equip students to understand how our social identities (such as, gender, race/ethnicity, class, disability, sexual orientation, and religion) contribute to the inclusion and/or exclusion of individuals in creative spaces.
• Public Exhibition- You’ll be introduced to effective forms of presentation and how they can greatly benefit your portfolio as well as your ability to be able to curate your own work. Alongside the development of your presentation and curation skills, you will also be introduced to moving image as a way in which to display your work.
• Opportunity - 24-hour film challenge- This week will help you develop your understanding and appreciation for fast-paced idea generation while working within a team. You’ll work to create an idea, develop your concept and produce a short film in 24 hours.
• Group Film- You’ll be introduced to various filmmaking conventions and associated theories in order to help you work in a group to produce a short, animated film. You’ll learn pitching and presentation skills, the individual roles and responsibilities in a production team and the importance and purpose of design, storyboarding and animatics in presenting your ideas.
• Animation Industry Practices- Through a series of tailored seminars and workshops you will be set briefs that are aligned to the entry requirements typical of an internship/junior level animator role within the animation industry.
• Animator’s Portfolio- The Animator’s Portfolio is a focus on your own individual work and creative practice, with a view to your future in the creative industries. You’ll create an online web presence to showcase and contextualise examples of your current working practice, and learn to curate your own work and design your portfolio to be both aesthetically pleasing and accessible.
• ATOM Activities- ATOM activities are tiny pieces of individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university. Collectively they form a small fraction of your curriculum that is determined through your own personal choice and interest.
• PLE Digital Outcome- In this unit you will collate a digital record, reflecting on your learning journey through the first year of your degree. You will be identifying key points and developments within all units undertaken. We are interested in seeing a detailed account of your academic, technical and creative progress and development.

Year 2

Core units
You will study the following core units:

• Launch week- A series of interdisciplinary seminars and workshops on how to evaluate your own work and recognise your points of strength. This week will investigate how creative risk-taking, invention and experimentation helps to develop your work.
• Short Film- In this unit you are asked to produce a professionally finished film with the aim of having it screened at a competitive International Animation Festival before the end of your second year. In order to have your film accepted into a festival it will need to demonstrate a high level of creativity, technical competence and originality whilst communicating a clear idea. All films will be prepared for entry into one or more festivals.
• The Conscious Practitioner- This unit aims to promote progressive values and attitudes to diversity and inclusion in creative practice. Students will have the opportunity to explore global perspectives and influences on creative practice, drawing upon interactions with varied identities, cultures, politics, and histories. The unit will explore how beliefs, values and attitudes drive behaviour and practices. Students will reflect on the development of their own creative influences, perspectives, practices, and sense of belonging as developing creative professionals in global and contemporary spaces.
• Opportunity Week – Game Jam- This week consists of a series of interdisciplinary seminars, screenings, and workshops on creative game-building subjects through the lens of a ‘Games Jam’ event. You’ll see the possibilities and potential of what you could create in a short space of time, with the influence of their individual practises and subjects.
• You’ll explore further innovation, technique, and technology in production, distribution and exhibition of a fully functioning and playable video game.
• Research, Reflection and Practice- Research is a practical activity that will further your creative, technical, and critical abilities. The research you will undertake within this unit will be expanded to take account of wider contexts and how these key debates, discussions and discourses relate to your own evolving animation practice. It will be used to produce a fully contextualised film outcome with depth and character. You’ll also produce a statement of intent for your final year, including your dissertation proposal, and there’s also an opportunity to undertake a self-generated work placement.
• Client Brief- In collaboration with a client, you’ll work in small production teams to reflect usual industry working practices. Each member will explore both individual roles and responsibilities while maintaining a wider role within the team and the project. Using advanced digital animation techniques in 2D, 3D, or a combination, you’ll look beyond the tools of the software and explore their creative use within the context of the clients' requirements and needs.

ATOM Activities
This unit is an extension of your Year 1 ATOM Activities.

• PLE Digital Outcome- You’ll build your industry community and professional networking footprint, creating a digital folder evidencing that you are actively engaging in sustainable professional development. You’ll showcase current and newly established professional networks and identify common interests.
• Elective units- You will study two of the following elective units across the year.

Farnham
The following electives are available at UCA Farnham:

• Acting Through Song: You’ll learn and develop skills relevant to character and narrative-driven musical performance, rehearsing and performing a sharing that may include selected sequences from a play or plays with music or musical theatre.
• Applied Skills for a Sustainable Media Industry: UCA is a founder member of the albert Education Partnership from BAFTA, which brings together Film and TV course providers from across the country and empowers their students to consider and help alleviate the screen industry’s impact on the climate crisis. Upon successful completion of this unit, you will achieve certification as an ‘albert Grad’, signalling your achievement of highly employable skills for a sustainable industry.
• Audio World Building: Sound design can have an enormous impact on any moving image project. This unit will encourage you to explore the way sound can be used to underpin action, describe the unseen, establish an environment, set a tone, depict a mood or even to directly elicit an emotional response from an audience. 
• Cinematography: This unit is essential if you want to develop yuor skills in visual storytelling and creating compelling visuals for film and video. By taking this unit, you will learn the principles of cinematography and gain hands-on experience using industry-standard equipment to create professional quality visuals.
• Consent, Intimacy and Stage Combat: This unit focuses on the fundamental skills and principles required for performing effective, believable, and safer intimacy and unarmed (hand to hand) combat for stage and screen.
• Film Production: This unit is designed to provide learners with practical skills and knowledge in film production, with a focus on collaboration, professionalism, and self-reflection. The unit will culminate in a group film production project, where learners will have the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge.
• Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Music and Theatre: This unit encourages interdisciplinary collaboration between Music, Acting & Performance, and Design for Theatre & Screen to plan, rehearse and deliver a live performance piece to an audience of peers and the public. This project puts music performance at the centre of the collaboration. 
• Loops and Micro Format Films: You’ll discover the creativity and versatility of the simple animated (or live action) loop for use on your website as a showcase to promote your own work or engage your ‘brand’, and create three loops to upload to your websites or use in social media for self-promotion.
• Motion Capture & Green Screen: Motion capture is a technique used to capture the movements of actors or objects in digital form. Green screen is a technique used to composite two or more images or video streams together by replacing a specific colour (usually green or blue) with another image or video stream. In this unit you’ll learn about how both these things can work in the VFX industry.
• Physical Theatre: You’ll work together with students from a wide range of courses to make a live physical theatre production. This could be further augmented by animated material or filmed material. TV or film students may also be involved capturing or streaming the performance.
• Postproduction Editing: This elective unit is essential if you want to become proficient in the art of post-production film editing. Using industry-standard software - Avid Media Composer (Davinci Resolve, and Premiere Pro) – you’ll create a professional quality scene and have analysed and evaluated professional editing and sound design workflows.
• Screen Writing: You’ll be introduced to a range of creative writing skills and, in particular, the highly visual medium of writing for film and television. You will view and compare the work of some of the industry’s most accomplished contemporary screen writers, learn how to present and format a script and write your own story outline for a short film, series or screenplay.
• Shakespeare Festival: In this unit you will stage an abridged version of a Shakespeare play in an outdoor festival setting at sites around UCA Farnham campus. A director will help you shape the play and actors, composers and designers will work together to rehearse and run the festival events. 
• Verbatim: You will explore Verbatim texts and performance practices including ‘headphone’ theatre and documentary theatre practices. The unit will culminate in small group films/performances using the practical techniques studied.
• Virtual Production: Virtual production has emerged as a cutting-edge technology that revolutionizes the way film and television productions are made. You’ll gain the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to use virtual production tools and techniques to create immersive and interactive digital content.
• Maidstone

You can also choose from the following electives offered at Maidstone TV Studios:

• Immersive Production: You will explore cutting edge and future focused technology to gain a broad comprehension of the expertise and skills required if you want to delve further into immersive media production. The unit will enable you to get a strong understanding of where the production industry is heading and allow you to pitch a concept using these technologies for a television production brief.
• Prestige Television: Starting with the claim that television reaches more people than any other cultural form, this unit examines and articulates the meanings of ‘Quality’ and ‘Prestige’ as they relate to Television, and why these genres of ‘Prestige’ have become dominant.
• TV in the Age of Digital Disruption: This unit examines and critically interrogates the changing dynamics of television production, distribution, textual analysis and audience engagement in an age of ‘digital disruption’, particularly following the rise of streaming services.

Professional practice year (if undertaken)

• If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.
• While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Year 3

Core units
You will study the following core units:

Launch – Professional Practice

• This unit focuses on ground-breaking, creative work that has surprised, shocked, and changed the way we view the world. It will help you see the possibilities and potential of what you could create and achieve in your final year. You’ll explore further innovation, technique and technology in production, distribution, and exhibition.

Pre-production and Pitch

• This unit provides an in-depth look at the initial stages of the production process of animation filmmaking. This is your opportunity to propose, develop and refine your ideas and techniques in order to shape them into a fully formed concept that is production-ready. You’ll develop your scripts and concepts, consider your audience, structure your time, and clarify your production techniques, before crafting and presenting a film pitch with supporting documents that fully articulate your concept.

Opportunity Week

• The week comprises a series of interdisciplinary lectures, seminars and workshops centred around life after graduation. It covers important and relevant subjects, like internships, interviews, professional etiquette, freelancing, presentation skills, applying for funding, networking, artist residency programs, handling criticism and rejection.

Dissertation

• You’ll undertake sustained, individually negotiated research on a subject related to the contextual and/or theoretical concerns of your discipline or chosen area of practice, towards the provision of structured written argument.

Graduate Film

• Your Graduation film represents the culmination of your time at UCA, and should draw upon all of the creative, technical, and theoretical knowledge that you have gained. The film can be made in any style, medium or genre, and should be accompanied by a professionally facing showreel. You can work individually, collaboratively or as part of a group – but whatever you produce, it must be of a standard that is aimed at entry into international film festivals, the creative industries or postgraduate study.

Career opportunities
Industry links

As a long-established degree course, 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 Animation
• Studio AKA
• Cinesite
• The Mill
• Create and Make
• Agile Films
• Blackdog Films Limited
• HSI Film
• Blink Productions
• The Film Club
• National Film and TV School
• Passion Pictures (one of the leading studios in Europe)
• Nexus
• Moth Collective
• UsTwo
• Beakus
• Fudge Animation
• Animade

Careers

Animation is one of the most significant and rapidly expanding media fields. An enormous range of career opportunities exist in animation, from the traditional techniques of animation storytelling to drawn, 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. These include positions as:

• Animators
• CG animators
• CG riggers
• Designers
• Directors
• Model makers
• Producers
• Storyboard artists.

Many well-known studios have been set up by our alumni including:

• Animade
• Astley Baker Davies (makers of Peppa Pig)
• Film Fabrik
• Honeycomb Animation (makers of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids)
• Mackinnon & Saunders
• Moth Collective
• Slurpy Studios
• Tandem Pictures.

This gives our course very solid links to a vibrant industry, and we enjoy connections with a range of creative talent, studios and potential employers.