The MA Animation degree allows you to develop your 2D, 3D or VFX Digital Animation skills and knowledge to a more advanced level. Your will develop a personal portfolio in approach, style and vision that looks to the forefront of current practices. The course allows you to extend your theoretical and contextual understanding of animation, its audiences and media culture. You will become familiar with professional-level enquiry, research, creative invention, project planning and management practices. The course is taught within a multi-disciplinary environment of discussion and exploration of ideas. This award enables you to develop creative practical skills in a range of digital processes that are used in Animation and related fields. Within this course you can choose to focus in a particular area of animation such as VFX, 2D animation or 3D animation or even combine the areas to create new forms and ideas from the fusion of techniques and styles. Within 2D animation you can look at traditional animation techniques and blend these skills and approaches with new digital media to form new content and formats. You will explore the rich heritage of 2D animation and the possibilities of experimentation, both in form and content, that traditional animation has actively encouraged. 3D digital animation has become the most popular form of animated imagery over the past decade,used by more experimental practitioners who question the appearance, form and uses it has in present-day media. In this form, you will challenge your preconceptions of what 2D or 3D animation can do, which helps you become an innovator in the field. You will have the opportunity to explore the range of possibilities available to the practitioner, mixing technical knowledge of the subject with the creative freedom that an understanding of the theory and context of new media practices brings.

Particular emphasis is given to providing you with the skills necessary to further your career as an animator. The course is designed to help you understand and work within the contemporary media environment. Particular attention is given to helping you acquire enquiry and information handling skills, enterprise skills in the development and presentation of ideas, in communicating in the spoken and written word, and addressing particular audiences.