MA — 2026 entry Film, Animation and Digital Arts

By consolidating your existing skills and talents, then enhancing them into areas of creative media production in which you might be less familiar, we help you develop a broad armoury of aptitudes and proficiencies. Through this, you can take part in an expanded range of contemporary media projects, drawing on both traditional and evolving techniques and technologies. You will be concentrating on 2D and 3D animation, with specialist tutors who can transform a non-artist into an animator, and who show you how to accumulate toolboxes of techniques to suit your styles and interests. In workshops and classes, you will use up-to-date software on fast, well-specified computers. You will be assessed through the development of a cumulative portfolio encompassing both 2D and 3D animation. This includes outputs from your workshops accompanied by a reflective synopsis on your learning and development. The skills and knowledge acquired in this module are cumulative and can be applied to subsequent modules and workshops over the course of the MA programme.

Consolidating existing skills and knowledge in practical production, your coursework for assessment will consist of one or more group projects requiring collaboration both inside and outside of the MA FADA cohort. Where possible, projects developed will make use of the latest contemporary media production technologies. This could include (as a non-exhaustive and indicative list) 4k or 8k filming, virtual production, real-time rendering, interactive video or virtual character creation. You will join a collaborative team consisting of both your own cohort members and, possibly, other courses as appropriate. The skills applied to this module will be drawn both from your existing skills-base and from those developed in Creative Media Practices (1).

Here, you will be shown ways of exploring theoretical and cultural contexts for film, animation and digital arts. Examples will particularly encourage you in your exploration and execution of experimental techniques. You will accomplish this not only by critically analysing current and future developments, but also by seeing how these fit within historical and philosophical debates and dialogues around creative arts in practice and creativity in general. One indicative focus is film-makers' interaction with the natural world. Initial lectures will also give you research methods for the creative arts, with a focus on the moving image. Later, you will hear and discover contemporary debates reflecting this rapidly evolving area Your coursework will be a 3,000-word research paper which complements and contextualises forthcoming work on the Final Masters Project.

This module runs as a continuation from Creative Media Practices (I), to give you a range of specialist workshops in important techniques in contemporary moving image media production in addition to furthering and practicing your general abilities in 2D and 3D animation. You will be equipped further to develop your proficiencies in film, animation and digital media arts production methods, and in particular explore newer techniques in audiovisual content creation. Indicative methods could include virtual production, real-time rendering, procedural animation, performance capture, and generative AI through our Topaz AI licence. You will also engage with contemporary VFX tools and technologies, encountering and consolidating skills in compositing packages such as (in an indicative, non-exhaustive list) Nuke and Da Vinci Resolve Fusion. You will also become familiar with tools including (as an indicative, non-exhaustive list) Unreal Engine and TV Paint. Your project might require research and development, and this module can accommodate exploration and skills development in a newly identified tool or technique not previously encountered. This may include evolving research areas: an indicative, non-exhaustive list could include automated digital character animation, applied denoising diffusion probabilistic models, location-based interactive installation and augmented reality techniques. Your access to tutors, both university staff and industry specialists, will continue.

This module spans the entirety of the MA FADA programme, representing your cumulatively developed final creative project. This project can take many different forms and formats drawn from the multitude of film, animation and digital media arts production techniques explored and developed over the stages of the course. Alternatively, you can choose to undertake a research-oriented creative practice project, informed by both theoretical and practical aspects of the programme.