Animation

At the heart of Northern Ireland’s vibrant animation industry, this programme focuses on the three core components of narrative, character, and performance in the context of TV, film, and games animation.

Design Research and Development – Opportunities are developing for new narratives and audiences who interact with animation. You will advance your understanding of research and development within the creative sector and your alignment to changing markets.

Timing for Animation – Core skills in animation, developing a deeper understanding of timing and animation principles in action.

Acting for Animation – Narrative builds characters whose performances drive the story. Develop a deeper understanding of acting, character empathy, and building relationships with the audience.

Animation Production – Understand computer animation pipelines, their implementation and project management from concept through animation, compositing and editing in a commercial production environment.

Major Project – Complete a body of work in your chosen area of animation production.

Year one
• Timing for Animation
• Animation Production
• Portfolio Project
• Design Research and Development
• Experimental Design

Standard entry conditions
To apply to our postgraduate taught programmes, you must meet the University’s General Entrance Requirements and any course-specific requirements.

Entry Requirements
Applicants must hold a degree (with at least 2:2 Honours standard) or equivalent or demonstrate their ability to undertake the course through the accreditation of prior learning.

The specific requirements for admission are detailed below:
i) Applicants should normally hold a good honours degree in any Animation, Computer Science, Engineering, Design practice, Visual Arts or cognate subject from a University of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, from the Council of National Academic Awards, the Higher Education and Training Awards Council or from an institution of another country which is recognised as being of an equivalent standard.

ii) Applicants may be interviewed along with the presentation of a body of work that can take the form of, but is not limited to, a portfolio and/or showreel and proposal. Applicants must be able to satisfy the panel at interview that their work is of a standard that will allow them to deal with the intellectual and practical rigours of the programme.

iii) Applications are welcomed from diverse backgrounds however where there is a discipline shift the applicant must represent a coherent rationale for this shift and evidence prerequisite knowledge, skills and experience.

The programme is devised specifically to support continuing lifelong learning for professions in a rapidly changing field. Therefore APL (Accreditation for Prior Learning) will be considered as evidence of exceptional ability appropriate to recruitment to the programme. Applications from professionals with extensive professional, industrial and/or commercial experience but lacking recent or higher level academic qualifications will be encouraged. APL (Advanced Prior Learning) will be considered as evidence of exceptional ability appropriate to the course.

Your Application
Application is through the University's online application system (see "Application Weblink").

Start date: September 2024

Career options
This programme is designed to prepare students for a career in a range of animation related fields such as TV & Feature film animation and games animation. Recent graduates have found employment with animation studios such as Sixteen South, Paper Owl Films and Jam Media.