MA (Animation)

This course offers you the opportunity to choose your own route through the field of animation, studying either ma animation or the bracketed specialism, visual effects. 

• Animation is a discipline that adapts, challenges and leads the moving image industry. It is in the DNA that we all share since it can be applied equally to live action, games, XR, live performance, online, and any number of time-based media as well as being an important form in itself.
• Creating animation is a collaboration, and at the heart of this course we encourage students to develop a strong network within the School of Digital Arts and using our industry focussed links. Animation is not a mono-discipline but multi-faceted, and our bracketed animation specialism reflects the many ways that animation can be applied and examined. From science communication, to award winning short films, to mind-bending VFX, animation touches and transforms many areas.
• You will drive your creative projects in your chosen practice with staff who will guide and challenge you. Our postgraduate community is led by a specialist team of academic staff and visiting speakers who are practising artists, animators and researchers. They bring their passion and knowledge of the varied industries that animation feeds and share advice and expertise about how students will join them.
• The postgraduate student experience is designed to provide you with opportunities to hone your specialist technical skills, challenge your thinking, and make professional links with the global creative community and industry.

Features and benefits

• You will join a course that fosters interesting and diverse engagement with external partners within Manchester, the region, nationally and internationally.
• You will become an integral part of SODA - home to a creative community of research active staff with expertise in diverse fields of practice such as Animation, Filmmaking, Photography, Games Art and Sound Design.
• You will have the space, guidance and technical resources to enable you to develop your independent practice, whilst taking advantage of the transdisciplinary activities provided by our offer of option modules.
• You will have the opportunity to extend and develop your experience in the professional sphere by being introduced to our close links with national and international educational partners, research communities and strong links with the creative and digital sectors across the UK.
• By joining SODA at Manchester Met, you will become a part of the University’s dynamic research community within a city that is one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in Europe with a burgeoning arts scene and creative industries sector. 

Course information

• The MA Animation course provides a space for students to explore the rich and diverse practices of animation and develop their individual practice through exploration, experimentation and collaboration. You will have the freedom to advance your own style, technique and narrative voice.
• The course is a collaborative endeavour between the School of Digital Arts (SODA) in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, and the Department of Computing and Mathematics (DoCM) in the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
• If you are interested in the Visual Effects pathway you should enrol on all three modules which focus on VFX production, namely CG Industry Pipeline, Exploration in CG, and VFX Group Production (details below). The course uses industry-standard hardware and software.
• If your practice and interests are more focused on visual storytelling using 2D (hand-drawn or rigged), stop motion, 3D animation or a combination of techniques and experimental methods then our two Animation modules, Interdisciplinary Practice 1 and 2, will allow you to study and challenge existing narrative structures, aesthetics and delivery methods.
• The course is situated inside the School of Digital Arts and Manchester School of Arts, offering excellent facilities such as an industry spec stop motion studio, 70 Wacom Cintiqs for digital drawing and sculpting, motion capture, green screen and VR studios, and access to an award winning 3D printing module. You will also have access to a full range of technical resources, including darkrooms, screen printing, bookbinding, and wood and metal workshops.
• The programme leader for this course is Marianne Patera. The Animation pathway is taught and supported by Kristin Marshall, Occulta Dama, Joe Evans, Merike Van De Vijver, Chris Tichborne and Damon Bannister and other members of the SODA staff team. The VFX modules are delivered by Anamaria Weston, Anthony Bukowski and Paul Greenwood. Our staff expertise, industry experience and research interests span across animation techniques and technologies, and ways of telling stories. We are also privileged to have Michael Dudok De Wit, award winning animator and director, as our SODA Visiting Professor. The course has excellent links with industry and external partners who join us as guest speakers, attend student presentations and pitches and take part in portfolio reviews.

Year 1
Core modules

• Co-Lab 6 (Animation)
• Interdisciplinary Practice 1 (Animation)
• Independent Project

Option modules

• CG Industry Pipeline
• Critical Study
• Digital Art Activism
• Exploration in CG
• Interdisciplinary Practice 2 (Animation)
• Perspectives
• Professional Practice
• Reimagining Technologies
• Skills in XR Storytelling
• Spaces in XR Storytelling
• Sustainability and Digital Arts
• VFX Group Production

Career prospects

• Courses at the School of Digital Arts have been developed with leading industry partners to ensure that you attain the industry-ready skills and technical abilities you'll need to gain experience, build a network and launch a career in the creative media, arts and digital tech industries.
• Our graduates have gone on to work for companies that focus on 3D visualisation, Animation, VFX production, content creation for educational purposes and advertising, and architectural visualisation, while others have been working as freelance animators for various clients, and regional and national studios.