Master of Arts in Film Practice

at Arts University Bournemouth United Kingdom

Painting defines its practice through the particularities of the painted field. The making materiality of the unique object, a globally acknowledged cultural history and the dedicated and dynamic relationship of the painted object to the painter. Painting in the 21st century is vital and relevant. Contemporary painting and what it can be, do and declare is meaningful. We ask how, why and according to what means.

The MA Painting course will explore this innovative and expansive territory in depth, dedicating itself to specialist study at postgraduate level.

The journey from design to shop window or fashion catwalk is fascinating. You’ll discover the complexities of buying, selling and promotion – and the need to be entrepreneurial. A major strength of this course is its position within a specialist arts, design and media institution with the potential for you to study alongside other creative and cultural disciplines.

During the course you will build an appropriate portfolio of skills, which supports the development of individual practice, and informs your decision regarding the selection of a specialist named award.

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

Our Dance degree runs in partnership with Pavilion Dance South West (PDSW), the National Dance Development Organisation for the South West. We have our own, purpose-built dance studios on campus and we also have the use of PDSW’s town centre studios. This is a perfect combination of both professional and educational environments. You'll be able to build a network of collaborators and professionals to help you launch your own creative career.

This degree will also enable you to understand the current dance industry and meet the professionals running it. On campus, you can make the most of our culture of collaboration by exploring AUB’s creative community and all that it has to offer. You’ll finish with a degree and the skills to be a dance artist, capable of thinking about dance in new and relevant ways. This is a competitive market, but you're one of a kind and have something great to offer. We’ll help you to become a dance professional with an edge.

In our dynamic studio environments, you’ll learn to experiment, test and develop your illustration practice. You can explore drawing, painting, sewing and printmaking, as well as photographic, digital, moving image and interactive media.

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.

MA Fine Art represents an exciting opportunity for students to challenge and build on their previous achievements and to study at an advanced level. Students deepen their knowledge and their ability to focus on their chosen field in relation to the key aspects that inform it.

Set within a community and culture of makers, students engage in dialogue and debate with their peers, both within and across MA pathways.

This experience provides dynamic and interactive sessions, which are vital to the enhancement and testing of new thinking and ideas generation as well as offering the broadest available critical arena for discussion of student work.

MA Photography course is a balance of art and commerce and is founded on the assertion that photography is a powerful form of communication that potentially connects with an audience of millions.

The course offers the opportunity to make professional work within, or crossing genres, whether it’s for publication, or the gallery. What defines it as professional, is that it is conceived and created with a specific audience in mind and is conscious of how meaning is affected by socio-political criteria.

The course is designed for ambitious photography graduates, or experienced photographers who wish to develop their knowledge and expertise in order to reach the very top of their field. We look for students with a passion for the subject and who are willing to take risks, and in doing so, push themselves to new heights.

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.

Since the Harry Potter boom in the early 2000s, alongside a recent influx of new releases from studies, such as Disney and Marvel, the film and VFX industry has expanded at an exponential rate.

This has firmly established the UK as the leading country for high-quality Visual Effects work and created an unprecedented demand for fresh, highly-trained graduate talent from the UK education system. The course was created in response to an industry demand for visual effects artists who possess strong observational skills and the ability to apply them collaboratively in the workplace.

Designed from the ground up by industry professionals, specifically to address this demand, the primary ethos is to create the quality required for employability within the industry. Developing a foundation in traditional artistic techniques, such as drawing, colour theory, perspective, photography and composition, 125 you will learn what it takes to create your own feature film quality visual effects.

Our 2D workflow uses Nuke for all compositing, and Maya/Zbrush and Arnold for 3D, while our colour pipeline is based on an industry model with custom LUTs to ensure accurate monitoring of colour in our fully calibrated VFX labs. All of our VFX labs are equipped with top of the range industry-level workstations and are supported by our render farm, fibre network, and clustered storage. With smaller class sizes, students have full access to the VFX labs and workstations on specified lab days alongside a more personal, teaching approach. You will experience a team-based production process that replicates industry best practice; including previsualisation, concept development, on-set data acquisition, asset building, and compositing. We’ll introduce you to the underlying concepts and fundamental principles of Visual Effects work and teach you the necessary creative and technological disciplines, developing your knowledge of 2D and 3D software.

The course prides itself on the currency of its staff. You will be taught by industry professionals that between them have worked at studios, including ILM, Framestore, Double Negative, Electronic Arts, MPC, Image Engine, Weta Digital and many more. We have taken the knowledge gained at these studios and have brought it into the classroom. Having worked in the industry at the highest levels, we not only know what makes a strong artist, but also what the visual effects industry is looking for. We are focused on our graduates’ successful entry into the VFX industry, as well as them having a long and successful career.

The visual effects industry community is very close, much like a family where everyone knows each other. Through the personal connections of our industry experienced staff we are able to bring in top class guest speakers, such as Christian Manz, Creative Director, Film at Framestore and Sue Lyster, Director of Studio Operations, and ILM, to name a few recent guests.

A career in creative writing could see you working in publishing, a literary agency, freelancing or in education — and that’s just the start. Whether you want to create prose, scripts, poetry or nonfiction, we’ll help you turn writing into a career.

With visits from published writers and industry professionals, you’ll be able to explore career opportunities and build contacts. When you graduate, you’ll have a strong portfolio and a professional network to kickstart your career.

Writers rarely work alone, so this course will give you the opportunity to collaborate with other courses. You might write scripts with animators or filmmakers, or explore narratives with illustrators.