MA (Animation Production)

The MA Animation production course focuses on practice, theory and professionalism and the ‘critical dialogue’ between them. This course can be studied full- or part-time from september or full-time from january. 

Course information

• The MA Animation Production philosophy sees understanding of the traditional principles of animation as fundamental, but these are critically contextualised in relation to technology, history, theory and professional/studio practice.
• MA Animation Production offers you the opportunity to demonstrate a systematic and critically informed understanding of current developments in animation theory and practice. Fundamentally based on a tripartite approach of Practice, Theory and Professionalism – with each element placed in ‘critical dialogue’ with the others – the course will ensure that your research and practice is at the forefront of the discipline.
• This course is closely associated with Bournemouth Film School, which includes BA (Hons) Animation Production and BA (Hons) Film Production. Bournemouth Film School is the UK's largest film school outside of London.
• The overall aim of this 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.

MA Animation Production consists of three 60-credit units (180 credits for the MA). These are:

• Master's 1: Defining Practice
• Master's 2: Consolidating Practice
• Master's 3: Resolving Practice

Your engagement with the course is via your own specialist practice in Animation – this may involve pre-production, production or post-production specialisms such as character design, storyboarding, concept work, or other specialisms such as puppet-making, or costume design for animation. You may choose to make an animated film as your final ‘outcome’ but could develop an MA-level portfolio through one of these other forms of specialist practice. The three-unit structure enables you to clearly identify and develop your ideas across practical, theoretical and professional modes of understanding, bringing your work to fruition in the final 'Resolving Practice' unit.

The part time route offers an ideal opportunity for people who are already working in industry to further develop their specialist skills and practice, and complete a major body of work across a 2-year period. We strongly encourage people to apply who want to examine and interrogate their professional Animation practice, and develop their understanding of the workplace.

Course Philosophy

• Animation’s position as an interdisciplinary field that draws from Art and Design, Film, Computing, Fine Art, Graphics (and other areas besides) necessarily means that top-level graduates in the field will have mastered a cross-disciplinary understanding of a range of skills, techniques, theories and discourses.
• The overriding objective is to enable all MA Animation Production students to see themselves 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.
• You’ll be a BA graduate in Animation or a related discipline. Although we will consider good graduates from other disciplines – having accepted them from Costume, Graphics, Digital Media, Illustration, Modelmaking, Photography and Fine Art in the past – you must have some understanding of the animation production process to prosper on this course.
• Our alumni have gone on to work at Aardman, ILM, Lupus Films, Framestore, Pixar, Moving Picture Company and many other companies. We’re proud of the network of AUB graduates who are now employed in animation – many of whom return to talk to current students.

Studio and resources

• 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 access to computer workstations and light boxes. There is also access to a computer suite equipped with specialist software. There are many opportunities on the MA to work with students on our award-winning BA (Hons) Animation Production course.

Hardware

• Dell Workstation PCs all with WACOM Intuos Pro Tablet
• Pixstor File Management System – used for storage
• Central Render Farm running Deadline Render Management Software and Arnold Renderer

Software

• Adobe Creative Cloud
• Toon Boom Harmony
• Storyboard Pro
• Dragon Frame
• Mari
• Maya
• Rv (for desktop and dallies playback)
• ZBrush
• Audacity
• Da Vinci Resolve
• Red Giant (complete site plug-ins)

Resources

• Light boxes (12 Field)
• Rostrum cameras
• Dell Workstations
• Stop Motion booths
• Line testing workstations
• Wacom Intuos 4/5
• Professional lighting Set (Dedo/Kino Flo)
• Nikon D800 and sundries
• Canon 650D HD/SD Stills Cameras and sundries
• Chrome Balls
• Motion control rig
• Fujitsu fi-6770 high-speed A3 sheet feed scanners integrated into Harmony
• A3 Epson DS-50000 scanners
• Epson GT-20000 scanners
• 109 TB pixitmedia pixstor Unified Scale-Out NAS
• Render Farm running Thinkbox Deadline 8 integrated into Maya

You’ll also have access to the following:

• Online Avid Symphony Nitris DX Edit Suite
• Avid Teaching Lab, plus Workstations for Media Composer and Pro Tools
• Avid Unity ISIS 32 TB Server to all Edit Suites
• Avid Pro Tools Edit Suites, plus audio control surfaces
• Sound recording booths
• Nuke