Advanced Diploma in Product Design and Development

at Centennial College - Story Arts Centre Campus Canada

Centennial College’s Theatre Arts and Performance program is your open door to a groundbreaking professional career in theatre. You will develop your technical skills, nurture your artistic voice, and make crucial industry connections.

Classes in acting, movement and voice will expand your artistic range across different styles of classic and contemporary performance, including live and on-camera. Build your audition skills, learn how to get an agent, and create your own dynamic demo reel.

You’ll also gain experience as an actor-entrepreneur through independent “storefront” productions, pushing your creative boundaries to the front-line of theatre innovation, with the tools to succeed in Canada’s vibrant theatre scene.

Upon graduating, you’ll be ready to run your own theatre company or develop your career as a professional actor, director, stage manager, producer or instructor, in Canada and on the world stage.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• Train in various styles of acting, for classical and contemporary scripts, written and improvised work, traditional and movement-based staging practices, live and on-screen, etc., under the instruction of industry-leading professionals
• Focus on entrepreneurship and networking prepares graduates for sustainable careers in theatre arts
• Opportunities to collaborate with the other students in photography, film and television, music, dance and art programs at the Story Arts Centre

Centennial College's Dance – Performance program, the ultimate stepping stone to becoming a professional dancer, helps you dance your way to a fulfilling career.

Facilitated by the School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design, the dynamic Dance Performance program is on the cutting edge of what's new, innovative, current and popular in today's dance culture. This college diploma program focuses on helping you to develop a high standard of performance and technical dance skills in:

•  Commercial dance
•  Hip-hop
•  Ballet
•  Jazz
•  Contemporary
•  Cultural
•  World trends
•  Indigenous North American dance forms
•  Acrobatics
•  Singing
•  Choreography
•  Pas de deux

In addition to learning technical dance skills, you take courses that nurture and enrich the mind-body connection and enhance the ability for storytelling. Throughout the two years you spend in the Dance – Performance program, you also learn and develop the skills and tools needed to cope with issues such as self and body image, stress, rejection, nutrition and better understand anatomy and injury prevention.

With a learning environment that reflects today's industry, you graduate with a professional resume, photos and dance show-reel. You will also possess a strong entrepreneurial spirit, a professional attitude and instruction ability within the training and performance environment.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements.

Program Highlights

• You acquire performance skills at professional, artistic and technical levels.
• A field placement in the final semester provides a valuable opportunity to work in the industry.
• Both the field placement and the Dance Performance program's industry connections allow you to network, learn and work with industry professionals who are in demand worldwide.
• At the Story Arts Centre, you collaborate with students in photography, film, television, music, art and theatre programs.
• The Dance Performance program's practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach prepares you for sustainable dance-related careers directly upon graduation.

Game Development & Design is a three-year advanced diploma program that aims to develop expert game designers who are able to create and develop their own titles. The program prepares students to become both technically literate and able to advance the conceptual and cultural potential of games.

The program concentrates on the practical applications of the game production process from the artistic, managerial, and technical sides. Students will be introduced to 2D and 3D design processes, foundations of computer programming, as well as how to communicate effectively with teams of artists and programmers to design, prototype and iterate their own fully playable 2D and 3D games. Students will also learn the professional and personal skills needed for success in the industry.

Centennial College's Fine Arts Studio program is an intensive two-year offering with emphasis on physically creating art through drawing, painting and sculpting.

By getting your hands dirty (literally), you learn the latest skills and techniques, find your own creative voice and be prepared to launch your career as an artist. You spend more time in the studio in two years at Centennial College than other schools offer in four!

In addition to the creative process, this arts diploma program offers one of Ontario's most comprehensive professional practice curriculum's. You'll graduate well-prepared to thrive as a self-employed artist in the professional arts community.

In this Fine Arts Studio program, you:

• Develop advanced technical, conceptual and professional skills required to engage the contemporary arts community.
• Work independently both in and out of the studio environment.
• Receive lots of one-on-one attention.
• Begin to nurture a lifetime of growth as a professional visual artist and storyteller.
• Have a progressive learning experience led by a collaborative team of teachers.
• Be encouraged to develop personal direction and approach to build your own unique voice and style in visual storytelling.
• The Fine Arts Studio program is for you if you are serious about practicing as a professional. As a candidate, you should have meaningful prior experience, either through education, a lifetime personal commitment, and/or the professional equivalent.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• The Fine Arts program frequently receives awards from both the Dean and the President for student satisfaction.
• A focus on traditional media, with selective integration of digital processes, gives you the skills necessary to thrive as a professional in the contemporary art world.
• You learn all about the business of being an artist, including getting shows and commissions, applying for grants, marketing yourself and building your career.
• In-school galleries allow for the opportunity to exhibit your work.
• You are exposed to professional exhibition opportunities, where the sales are real. Public exposure is also offered through rental programs.
• Attention is paid to individual creative growth in a studio environment.
• Enthusiastic faculty members are all accomplished professional artists and teach by drawing from their personal experiences.
• The Story Arts Centre is close to the heart of the city and gallery communities, but offers a welcoming non-institutional environment.

In Centennial College's three-year Journalism program, you gain the skills you need to navigate and succeed in a changing industry. By going from the classroom to the newsroom, you come to understand the multifaceted and fast-paced journalism industry, which focuses on interesting people, places and things.

In this advanced diploma program you:

• Cover a variety of topics while developing the critical foundation skills you need for the industry.
• Apply your newsroom skills to an award-winning community newspaper, a news website and radio-television news, all of which makes you versatile and industry-ready as soon as you graduate.
• Develop new multiplatform skills for the evolving world of news reporting.
• From covering breaking news to exploring human interest stories, as a journalist you will be responsible for reporting events, interviewing newsmakers and examining the issues of our times.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• You experience one-on-one interaction with faculty members in an ultra-modern, professional newsroom.
• The Story Arts Centre campus, where the Journalism program is facilitated, offers you access to publishing, broadcast and Internet facilities.
• Hands-on, real-world experience is available through award-winning community media, including the East York Observer newspaper, Freshly Pressed magazine, the Toronto Observer news website, radio and television newscasts available online.
• With a stellar faculty, whose combined credits include NBC News, CBC News, CTV News, OMNI, The Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post, Globe and Mail and more, your journalism training is relevant, demanding and highly effective.
• You connect with excellent faculty, mentors and guest speakers and get to partake in exclusive field trips.
• Through the field trips and your field placement, you have the opportunity to make exclusive news media connections.

The Communications and Media Fundamentals program at Centennial College is an intensive one-year preparation undertaking. If you're looking for a pathway to pursue further post-secondary education, consider this certificate program, which will help you to develop communication skills while offering an introduction to the communications and media industries.

With guidance from experienced Communications and Media Fundamentals faculty members and practical application of theory, you'll obtain competencies for short- and long-term success.

In this media program's courses, you'll:

• Partake in creative exploration and experimentation with contemporary digital and social media production tools;
• Create and maintain forums on social media networks using rich media applications;
• Apply theoretical principles to produce practical and focused written communications and media solutions;
• Research and describe media forms, audiences, platforms, and "traditional" and "non-traditional" communication methods;
• Use appropriate vocabulary, terminology, basic numeracy and communicative strategies necessary for the communications and media environment;
• Apply developed English language skills to a presentation portfolio;
• Write and present in basic narrative formats for a variety of media platforms;
• Examine roles and responsibilities of global citizenship in personal and professional contexts;
• Examine beliefs, values and behaviours that form individual and community identities and the basis for respectful relationships;
• Apply knowledge of communications and media workplaces, environments, and practices to develop job search strategies and early career success strategies.

Program Highlights
When you successfully complete Communications and Media Fundamentals, you'll receive an offer to these College's School of Communication, Media, Arts and Design three-year advanced diploma programs:

• Advertising and Marketing Communications Management
• Journalism
• Broadcasting and Film

The Digital Visual Effects program is the only two-year college diploma offering of its kind in Ontario. Facilitated at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, it provides you with the opportunity to learn the industry-standard techniques required to produce the photo-realistic visual effects seen in films that would be impossible to capture with a live-action camera.

In this diploma program's courses, you learn to work with the various aspects of the film-making process and bring them together into a seamless final product, while also developing your skills in industry-standard software. The Digital Visual Effects program focuses on the core skills needed to make you employable in the VFX industry and gives you the ability to explain how visual effects contribute to the entire process of storytelling in motion pictures.

You channel your efforts into demonstrating these concepts and core skills through a unique final project, for which you produce a demo reel suitable for job application in the visual effects field.

Program Highlights

• You learn industry-standard techniques in image processing, editing, lighting, rendering, matte painting, set extension, compositing and post VFX that employers are looking for.
• During the program, you produce a marketable demo and self-promotional package suitable for the VFX industry.
• A field placement in the final semester provides a valuable opportunity to work in the visual effects industry.
• You attend Digital Visual Effects courses at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, located close to Toronto's downtown core and the major VFX studios.
• During your time in the program, you study and work in labs that are equipped with the latest tools and industry-standard software.
• The program provides a practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach that prepares you for sustainable VFX-related careers.
• Opportunities exist to collaborate with students in the digital animation, game design, photography, broadcasting, music, art and theatre programs at the Story Arts Centre. This is a unique opportunity to network, learn and work with industry professionals.

The Script to Screen – Advanced Television and Film program at Centennial College offers a comprehensive, in-depth and hands-on understanding of what goes into developing and producing quality feature films and TV shows.

This multidisciplinary two-semester post-graduate program — facilitated by the School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design in the hub of Toronto's film and television district — will be especially beneficial for writers, directors, producers, editors, actors, and other film and television craftspeople who want to expand their industry knowledge.

The major focus of the first semester will be on creating, pitching, outlining, developing, drafting and polishing production-ready short film scripts. During the second semester, you'll have the opportunity to prepare, perform in, shoot and/or post a number of these productions.

Additionally, Script to Screen – Advanced Television and Film will see you deconstructing classic films, television shows and scripts of all genres. The program will also provide advanced instruction from industry professionals in your major and minor areas of craft interest, along with extensive employment information.

Program Highlights

• The Script to Screen – Advanced Television and Film program is unique among the few other post-graduate film and television offerings currently available in the Greater Toronto Area.
• Instead of immediately streaming you into master classes, the first semester will ensure you obtain a solid working knowledge of the various roles people have when working on a film or television production.
• The amount of included foundational lessons will allow you to better collaborate, improvise, problem-solve, and empathize with your fellow cast and crew members.
• The program will focus on dramatic filmmaking, comedy and several other genres. It will not, however, include documentary filmmaking.
• At a time when student films continue to be key to gaining a foothold in the business, the time and effort devoted to script development in Semester 1 and production and post-production in Semester 2 will result in higher quality student films than are customarily produced.

You’re sitting at home, flipping through the channels on a lazy Sunday morning. You pause on a commercial for a new cartoon that will be premiering the following week and a smile creeps across your face. As you continue to watch the commercial, your smile gets wider as a sense of pride puffs your chest out a little. The commercial ends and you turn off the TV to take in the moment.

You just witnessed the very first commercial for a show you helped to produce, and you can’t help but feel elated.

Children’s media is a key component to the Canadian entertainment industry. With rapid growth of the market, the demand for trained professionals is growing with it. Luckily, Centennial College offers a one-of-a-kind program that allows you to build and develop just the right skills to enter this line of work. The Children’s Media program provides you with hands-on experience, and prepares you for various career paths in the industry.

In only 3 semesters, you will build the capabilities to create content for children’s media, as well as learn how to manage and market various products. You’ll learn and master the true art of storytelling and put it to work with script writing. Video production and project coordination will come by as second nature after you complete your first two semesters at Centennial College.

Your final semester is where all your skills get to shine during your work-placement period. This is your opportunity to find the area of children’s media that speaks to you! Whether it be in licensing and merchandising, or in the writer’s room, the Centennial College Children’s Media program will put you on the right path to getting there.

• While in the program, you will receive front line experience in:
• Creating a brand plan
• Starting and developing content for a YouTube channel
• Working alongside a client relevant to the industry – Scholastics Canada being just one of the clients who partner with the students
• And so much more!

This will allow you to enter the workplace with a variety of experience in different sectors and completely understanding what to do in any situation. Graduates of this program have been known to be hired into the field within six months to a year of graduation, and two alumni received daytime Emmy nominations in 2018!

That moment you felt earlier after watching your first tv commercial will become a daily experience, and that experience will lead to so many more magical moments. With the Centennial College Children’s Media program, there are endless possible ways of how you can create the best moments for someone’s childhood.

Centennial College’s Museum and Cultural Management program offers an applied, learner-centred curriculum to help you develop the skill set needed to manage the programs and resources that preserve and publicly present the cultural and natural heritage of our civilization.

Courses in this Graduate Certificate program cover industry-based subjects, museum administration topics and in-depth explorations of contemporary issues and cases in Canada and abroad. Core theory is applied to current workplace realities. Assignments, lessons and student placements are linked to the vast network of museums in Ontario and Canada.

The Museum and Cultural Management program has fostered numerous partnerships with local, provincial and national institutions. Professionals from the field act as advisors, guest lecturers and field placement supervisors. Through our network, we will help you find the ideal field placement setting for your career development.

Not-for-profit museums, art galleries, science centres, aquaria, archives, sports halls-of-fame, artist-run centres, zoos and heritage sites attract more than 59 million visitors annually. A further 60 million people visit Canada’s historic sites and natural parks each year. Upon graduation, you will be prepared to work in this industry, at one of the 2,500 museums and related institutions in Canada or abroad.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. For more information, please visit Mobile Learning Programs.

Program Highlights

• You learn from professionals who have current knowledge of the industry.
• Training is complemented by a 7-week full-time field placement 
• The Story Arts Centre, located close to downtown Toronto, provides opportunities to collaborate with students in photography, broadcasting, music, art and theatre programs.
• The Museum and Cultural Management program's practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach prepares you for sustainable heritage sector-related careers directly upon graduation.