Master of Arts in Animation Production

at Arts University Bournemouth United Kingdom

Our BA (Hons) Acting course will appeal to you if you're passionate about pursuing a performance career. You’ll have plenty of professional and technical support and we encourage you to experiment and work collaboratively with other students on your own projects.

MA Historical Costume engages you in the potential of performance design and garment construction to explore complex ideas; some of which could stray into other areas of artistic experimentation. Students may come to the course with a background in costume, fashion, textiles or theatre/performance design or you may have studied subjects from across the humanities including arts and performance.

This master’s program supports and encourages you to investigate individual practice within an interdisciplinary framework, whilst developing a critical theoretical context for your work. The very special and unique nature of course delivery, through shared lectures, seminars, critiques and tutorials encourages both a ‘freewheeling’ atmosphere as well as an intense immersion in creative practice.

Whether you are interested in looking at historical influences or current socio-political issues related to dress, you will challenge the context of your study in design or historical costume construction within the broader framework of contemporary practice.

Visual Communication combines skills in illustration, graphic design, typography and digital design to create images that persuade or inform.

From the start, the course focuses on hand-drawn imagery to develop a feel for the shapes and styles that connect with audiences. Practical experiences will be used to develop your skills. We’ll help you to build your visual awareness and understanding of the world around you. In addition to plenty of theory and debate, you’ll have the chance to work on live briefs with other students and find work placements in creative businesses.

Visual Communication underlines the importance of good ideas. You’ll leave with all the practical skills that you need to work in a vibrant and exciting industry. Our graduates work as freelancers in small design companies and with larger firms, both locally and internationally.

Make-Up for Media and Performance gives you the skills that you need to play a key creative role in performance, fashion, film or television.

Our recent graduates have worked on BBC and ITV productions (such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coronation Street, Casualty, Granchester and The Durrells), films (such as Beauty and the Beast), theatre productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, musicals (such as Wicked, The King and I, Matilda and Priscilla Queen of the Desert), and at Leavesden Warner Brothers and Pinewood Studios.

The make-up artist is an important member of any production team and you’ll have the chance to work with students who are studying Acting, Film Production, Costume and Performance Design, Commercial Photography, Visual Effects, Fashion and Fashion Branding and Communication to create ‘live’ collaborative projects. On this course, you’ll learn a diverse range of make-up skills. You’ll study make-up and hair design for drama, ballet, opera and music. A different perspective will give you the skills for fashion and photography shoots. You’ll also construct wigs and hairpieces, and create prosthetic make-up FX for film and television. In short, you’ll develop skills that are a real asset to a wide range of performance industries, from theatre to TV, and from the music business to the world of fashion and film.

Our course is designed to provide you with a high-quality education in contemporary art practice, and is delivered by highly respected tutors, acclaimed artists and excellent technicians.

Over the duration of the course you will develop your individual artistic voice, informed through your own research and critical evaluation, peer and tutor’s feedback and a deep understanding of your chosen materials. When you graduate, you will be fully equipped to contribute and add something new to the UK’s art scene as an emerging artist.

Exhibiting and being enterprising is a key part of our course. We offer many opportunities for you to exhibit your work with an emphasis on site-specific locations thanks to our unique partnerships with local museums, councils and research centers. We also have a series of international student artist residency placements and worldwide partner university study exchanges. All these experiences are specially created by our tutors to give you a real sense of what it means to be a professional artist - both in the studio and the broader world.

In the first year you will work in open plan studios and participate in collective workshops to find what inspires and excites you as an artist. In the following years you will develop your practical, theoretical and critical skills within your self-defined study plans. The course culminates in two exhibitions of your work for your final major project, one on campus at Bournemouth and the second in London.

We support and encourage experimentation and development of skills, and workshops are offered as a continual part of the course over the 3 years. These are conducted in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, video, digital media and sonic art as well as seminars to foster your conceptual development and understanding of curation / how exhibitions are put together.

You will have additional access to the latest technology, such as laser cutters, CNC (computer numerically controlled) machines and 3D printers. Our aim is to provide you with a solid foundation so that you can create contemporary artworks with high technical skill combined with solid conceptual grounding.

Above all we offer a welcoming and inclusive course, set in a vibrant campus dedicated to creative practices of all kinds.

Students apply to the course predominantly from graphic design courses but are welcomed from a variety of backgrounds (if they can show an aptitude for typography). Students may have studied photography, architecture, illustration, interaction design, three-dimensional design, fine art, or, subjects such as journalism, philosophy, psychology, anthropology or sociology.

Whatever your background, you’ll be required to reflect on your worldview; the underlying assumptions and understanding that guides and constrains your practice, and to use this reflection as a starting point from which to further develop. Your practice can take many forms: it can be self-expressive, or socially orientated; print, screen-based or three-dimensional.

It can focus on an aspect of a well-defined area of design, such as branding, experimental typography, publishing, and user-centred design, or on something more unconventional defined as part of your study.

Graphic designers often work in groups, sometimes comprising members from different disciplines. MA Graphic Design provides many opportunities to work in interdisciplinary ways as it sits alongside the courses of other disciplines. Many of the taught sessions such as the introduction to research methods and processes occur in these interdisciplinary groups. At other times however you’ll be developing your project with your supervisor and other students on your course. This will require you to develop a theoretical framework, methodology and research methods that support your research focus.

As a graphic designer you should anticipate the possible consequences of your design interventions, including the meanings constructed through your practice, in relation to ethical and sustainability issues as well as to other relevant contexts. Creative approaches are required that respond to complex situations in which many problems reside. Outcomes are not constrained by media or by limited interpretations of what it is to be a graphic designer.

Consequently, an outcome might involve the design of an experience or service, as much as it might concern more conventional forms of graphic production.

This two-year, studio-based course, is the second part of the three-part qualification in becoming an architect. This design-based professional qualification, accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB).

You’ll work alongside fellow makers, collaborators, and enablers who have come from different schools around the world; you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate across the arts. The course philosophy has many connections and develops on from the four key issues identified in the BA (Hons) Architecture (ARB/RIBA part 1).

This course takes its approach from the context of the ‘shared studio-based arts university’ where all courses are making. This philosophy is applied throughout the taught units by emphasising the role of drawing, models and texts in the making of architecture; the things we make – to think about the things we make.

As a student you’ll be asked to develop projects with strong narratives commenting on current social, cultural and environmental issues. In each unit you’re encouraged to give architectural expression to your own personal views and visions, whilst aiming to produce tangible propositions, mindful of how they might be realised.

Studio Culture

The studio is both professional and exploratory. This educational experience is grounded in a strong studio culture of making and thinking, supported by regular lectures by practitioners, seminars and reviews.

The studio generates an atmosphere in which open, critical and reflective practice supports exploration and risk-taking where we test, discuss and present ideas. We’re particularly focused in delivering studio-based and student-centred learning environment.

We offer shared facilities such as the workshop, fab-labs, the print room and the Drawing Studio.

Personal, Professional and Ecological Development

The course will support your personal development towards a creative contribution to architecture and the wider world after graduation. The final Thesis Design year gives you the opportunity to develop your own research design project that integrates making and collaboration through an ecological narrative.

Performance designers are storytellers. Visual storytellers. BA (Hons) Performance Design and Film Costume creates innovative, individual and adaptable designers.

The performing body is at the core of the design work on this course and all students will create costume designs from the first year onwards. Great attention is paid to the study and design of historical, contemporary and experimental costume for film, theatre and site-specific projects.

In addition to costume design, some students will also go on to design and paint sets and make props and puppets for live performance, festivals, other events and exhibitions.

Some students will specialise in preparing themselves to work in the costume departments of film and TV productions with the aim of becoming costume designers in these industries.

The current BA Hons Costume and Performance Design course has been awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for its ‘distinguished degree-level education in costume design for the UK’s leading creative industries'.

You'll learn the skills needed to take on key creative and production roles in both live-action drama productions and documentaries.

Creating any sort of film depends on a team of technically gifted individuals working together. You'll discover the relationship between the various roles and stages of film production, including designing, editing, sound, cinematography, production and direction. As a film student at AUB, you'll have access to state-of-the-art equipment and well-equipped studios. We have professional filmmaking equipment for each part of the process, from pre-production to the delivery of completed films.

We’ve recently been awarded Gold by the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) which assesses the quality of teaching. Our staff are exceptional.

Our staff are inspiring teachers, researchers, industry practitioners and technicians who are here to support you with your studies and help you to achieve outstanding outcomes.

Animation is everywhere: from the classic Disney fairytale, to the quirky aardman comedy and the dynamic Pixar blockbuster.

Graduates from this course have gone on to work in studios across the world, including Pixar, Aardman, carrot, Lupus, and ILM. We’ll introduce you to the fundamental skills of drawing and painting which underpin animation in all forms. Along with training in industry-standard software, you’ll be able to apply your skills to hand-drawn, stop-motion, and CGI work. Working as part of a team in an animation studio environment, you’ll develop your personal portfolio and produce graduate films.

We have industry-standard facilities, where you’ll have access to the following throughout your studies – PC workstations with WACOM Intous Pro Tablets, a render management software, Adobe Creative Cloud, ToonBoom Harmony, Storyboard Pro, Dragon Frame, Mari, Maya, ZBrush, Da Vinci Resolve and Red Giant Complete.

Visits from industry practitioners and opportunities for studio placements will add to your knowledge and prepare you for a career that could see you work in film, commercials or even video game production. We’ll teach you skills to shape the future of the industry.