UDANIMAT - BA Animation

The basis of the learning and teaching strategy for the course is to emphasise learning through practice and acquired experience. Teaching methods include lectures, seminars, demonstrations, workshops, group tutorials and critiques. Students will learn in a number of different types of space such as atelier, computer labs, editing suites, and sound studios.

The course has been designed to include a range of different learning styles. Students will learn in a number of different ways: in lecturer-led sessions, learning from others in the class and in group projects, and learning through practice and experience and independent studies, as well as learning through reflection and evaluation.

In the first year of the course (level 4), projects are selected from a menu and learning is introductory and diagnostic. In the second year, the menu of projects is broader in scope and will include external ‘live’ projects. During this second year, students will learn more about working with others and about external stakeholders and briefs. Onus in the third (level 6) year is on self-directed studies, culminating in a sustained project in the student’s level 6 route that is informed by future career trajectory, including engagement with employers. This learning is targeted in a ‘flexibly specialised’ manner, focussed in demonstrating the skills of a vocationally-motivated, critical practitioner.

The structure of the modules that make-up the course is designed to create opportunities for regular formative feedback, with summative feedback at the end of each module or assignment.

Formative feedback will be provided at regular intervals during the module. Feedback comes in three forms, verbal feedback during critiques, feedback from other students and written feedback in one-to-one tutorials. Written feedback will be provided using the Faculty’s templates.

Summative feedback will be provided in assessment critiques at the end of modules and in writing according to published criteria after the final assessment of the submitted coursework.

Each year culminates in an exhibition which acts as an incentive for students to plan and produce work to the highest possible standard, allowing opportunity for the students to also get feedback from a wider audience.

Each student-group will have access to online resources, including WebLearn and Google groups. These are seen as forums for sharing information, discussion and learning.

In addition, module booklets will direct students to reading material that supports and broadens learning the language, vocabulary and canon of particular disciplines.

Contemporary culture is defined and communicated by and through media of public and private communication. BA Animation involves practised study in the processes of media production in the context of reflection upon the social, economic and intellectual significance of modern media culture. At the heart of the multi-disciplinary project of BA Animation are the critical activities of making media and understanding media: analogue and digital, in its many and various forms, via the institutions of cinema, broadcasting and print, and including contemporary media arts and online ‘interactive’ media. Nowadays, little gets said, viewed or enjoyed that is not ‘media’. This is the field of opportunity for a graduate in BA Animation.

The BA Animation course is both practical and theoretical. You will develop production skills across a range of media and examine the fields of communications and media. As well as becoming media-literate, you will also learn how to carry out specific creative and managerial tasks within media production. The course also provides you with highly transferable skills such as resourcefulness, team-working and the ability to acquire and analyse statistical data.

We live and work and inhabit a media age. Arts, broadcasting and visual culture in general, now rely upon digitalized delivery (even analogue forms are circumscribed by digital processes, formats and systems of circulation). Most contemporary and forward-looking art embraces the non-linear capacities and character of digital production and distribution. Novelty in the digital age depends, critically, upon technical, aesthetic and philosophical awareness of the permeable conditions of digital production and reproduction.

It is in this context, that this course aims to provide graduates with the conceptual, creative and technical skills to prosper in Animation.

Main educational aims of the course are to:

Provide students with the skills, knowledge and attributes required to operate effectively as artisanal professionals within the contemporary media and creative industries.

Provide students with the appropriate conceptual know-how and knowledge of the creative and design processes, principles and techniques of making animation.

Promote development of intellectual and imaginative powers, including the attributes of critically informed independent thinking, problem-solving, effective communication, self-awareness and insight.

To encourage understanding of the contextual and critical environments forming and informing media practice and to recognize causal relationships within animation and, more generally, in media.

Foster creativity, motivation, independence and the ability to collaborate with others so that graduates can function effectively as critical practitioners within the contemporary media and creative industries.

Provide students with a high level of visual literacy so they can understand, use and critically respond to the codes, conventions and visual language within animation.

Provide students with an education that will enable them to become successful practitioners and gain employment in the vastly diversified media and creative industries (including consultancy and self-employment), encouraging enterprise, initiative and imagination.

Provide students with the necessary critical, creative and technical skills to function effectively as critical practitioners or proceed to further study at post-graduate level.

Provide graduates with an understanding and appropriate knowledge of specialist fields within media practice (viz animation) so that students can both flourish in their vocation and in the emergent overlaps between animation and film.

Upon successful completion of level 4 students should be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding:

Demonstrate a basic level of discipline-specific knowledge of relevant technological and organisational developments situated in academic context, including relevant basis in tools and methods relevant to Animation. (A)[1]

Demonstrate a basic command of essential techniques and technologies of use, testing and illustrating key techniques and methods in secure and controlled conditions. (A)

Cognitive intellectual skills:

Demonstrate grasp of contrasting evidence in specified field or discourse, showing ability to make an argument, evidencing logical development and organisation of evidence, and rudimentary synthesis of materials. (SD)

Demonstrate capacity to collect, categorize and process given ideas and information, suggesting ways to apply these to a developing perspective within the scope of subject matter consulted. (SD)

Summarize and describe selected information, speaking in clear, coherent and concise manner, aided by presentation technologies, as appropriate, within given limits of timeframe and format, including teamwork. (A)

Transferable skills including Critical practice:

Demonstrate a basic-level understanding of relationships of form and function and of relevant materials and medium, selected and applied to an appropriate range of conventional examples. (A)

Demonstrate a basic level of conceptual, contextual and practical understanding of the key terms of academic study and relevant subject-specific knowledge. (CCS)

Demonstrate a basic command of conventions of citation and referencing, digital literacy, including adequacy in use of appropriate software and online learning technologies, adequacy in written and spoken presentation – clarity and conciseness in delivery, evidence-based argument (including citation), keeping to given limits. (CCS)

Demonstrate a basic command of construction of argument grounded in selection and review of scholarly discourse and other relevant documentary sources (compare/contrast), providing description and basic analysis supported by relevant examples. (CCS)

Subject-specific skills:

Demonstrate basic knowledge and understanding of historical formation of subject field (history & theory) in relation to and support of a media practice. (SD)

Demonstrate formative knowledge (including factual description) and understanding of specified subject discipline consistent with basic level of engagement. Indicate initial grasp of course materials and theoretical principles through indicative examples. (SD)

Upon successful completion of level 5 students should be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding:

Extend and demonstrate an intermediate level of discipline-specific knowledge of technological and organizational developments in appropriate discursive context, including relevant basis in tools and methods relevant to Animation. (A)

Extend and demonstrate technical competence and command of conventions of use, applied to relevant, intermediate level, project development. (A)

Cognitive intellectual skills:

Extend and develop analytical competence by explaining conceptual links in a clearly ordered way, comparing and contrasting evidence appropriately. (SD)

Extend critical capacity to collect, categorize and process relevant source materials, integrating these effectively within the scope of the discourse, as evidence of an emergent independent perspective. (SD)

Parse and present salient information, in coherent and cogent manner, where presentation technologies illustrate and complement the spoken word, within given limits of timeframe and format, including collaborative research, design and presentation. (A)

Transferable skills including Critical practice:

Extend and demonstrate effective understanding of relationships of form and function and of relevant materials and medium, selected and applied to project work of intermediate standard. (A)

Extend and demonstrate an intermediate level of conceptual, contextual and practical understanding of the key terms of academic study and relevant subject-specific knowledge. (CCS)

Demonstrate adequacy and consistency in use of conventions of citation and referencing, demonstrating digital literacy, including use of appropriate software and adequacy in online learning technologies, adequacy in written and spoken presentation – clarity and conciseness in delivery, evidence-based argument (including citation), keeping to given limits – evidenced in and through an appropriate range of idioms and formats (oral presentation, written essay, reports, etc.). (CCS)

Demonstrate effective construction of argument grounded in selection and review of scholarly discourse and other relevant documentary sources (compare/contrast), providing description and basic analysis supported by relevant examples applied to an appropriate range of idioms and formats (oral presentation, written essay). (CCS)

Subject-specific skills:

Demonstrate effective understanding of historical and discursive formation of subject field (history & theory), in support of extension of technical skills in parallel and corresponding development of integrative (theory-in- practice) approaches.

Demonstrate critical and contextual understanding of relevant field of professional practice, including developed knowledge of relevant employment practices, in particular, to:

Acquire and demonstrate conceptual and practical understanding of the structure, organisational conventions, and culture of relevant professional workplace environments, pertinent to subject/disciplinary knowledge and future interests, to include legal and ethical constraints.

Demonstrate relevant knowledge and understanding of the economic and institutional constraints upon production of creative practice. (SD) & (A)

Extend knowledge of subject field (including specialized areas of interest) consistent with intermediate level of learning. Demonstrate effective understanding of subject paradigm by devising appropriate examples in support of sustained argument and exposition. (SD)

Upon successful completion of the course students should be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding:

Demonstrate degree-level of integrative knowledge of technological and organizational characteristics, including relevant basis in tools and methods in context of mature understanding of Animation. (A)

Demonstrate technical competence and command of conventions of use, applied to relevant, Degree-level, project development and realization. (A)

Cognitive intellectual skills:

Demonstrate analytical insight by integrating intellectually complex relationships, illuminating evidence in support of argument in a coherent, logically structured way. (SD)

Demonstrate critical judgement in collection, categorization and synthesis of source materials, enabling an independent perspective to emerge strongly in relation to integrated understanding of the discourses of knowledge. (SD)

Research and select key information, parsed and presented in a fluent and persuasive manner, where presentation technologies illustrate and complement the spoken word, within given limits of timeframe and format, including collaborative research, design and coherent presentation.

In order, overall, upon completion of Degree-level study:

To demonstrate throughout the specialist skills and graduate attributes of a critical practitioner, intellectually and technically trained and equipped to intervene and operate effectively as an artisanal professional in the creative economy and civil society. (A)

Transferable skills including Critical practice:

Demonstrate critical knowledge and practised understanding of relationships of style and meaning and of relevant materials and medium, sympathetic to context and purpose and realized in and through Degree-level conception, research, design and production of professional standard project.

In order, overall, upon completion of Degree-level study:

To demonstrate throughout the specialist skills and graduate attributes of a critical practitioner, intellectually and technically trained and equipped to intervene and operate effectively as an artisanal professional in the creative economy and civil society. (A)

Demonstrate throughout Degree-level conceptual, contextual and practical understanding of the key terms of academic study and relevant subject-specific knowledge. (CCS)

Demonstrate throughout appropriate Degree-level use of conventions of citation and referencing, including: digital literacy, written and spoken presentation – clarity and conciseness in delivery, evidence-based argument (including citation), keeping to given limits – evidenced in and through an appropriate range of idioms and formats (oral presentation, written essay, report writing, etc.). (CCS)

1. Atelier modules (A):

MD4001, MD4002, MD5001, MD5002, MD6001, MD6002

2. CCS modules (CCS):

CP4010, CP5010, CP6010

3. Subject Discipline modules (SD):

MD4005, MD5005, MD6003

Media, Communication & Cultural Studies

Teaching and learning is through atelier, seminars, workshops and practical assignments. The main methods of assessment are the critique of practical project presentations and the workbook/portfolio (combining descriptive and analytic documentation of various kinds). All Final year students produce a specialist major project that prepares them for their chosen career.
A number of different assessment methods are used on this course. The assessment methods have been tailored to achieve and test module and course learning outcomes and to support a number of different learning styles.
These methods are aligned with the undergraduate curriculum framework and the faculty assessment strategy.
Students are assessed through a variety of methods including practical projects, academic writing, workbook/portfolio, reports, oral presentations, exhibitions and critiques.
Formal and informal formative learning is ongoing through tutorial and seminar discussion and feedback. Opportunities to develop key and essential transferable skills and knowledge and to instance these in professional practice are hard-wired into the core structure of the course.
Towards the end of each module, we will gather student feedback and use this to appraise the delivery of the module and the course. Module monitoring will also make a significant contribution to the continued development and improvement of the course. This approach links with the Faculty learning and teaching strategy.

‘Employability’ is integral to the design and delivery of the Media Practice critical practice curriculum. At all levels and throughout, notably in the opportunity to realise intellectual and practical properties of accumulated learning in the degree–honours year by completing an integrated programme of specialist, discipline-specific studies (in theory and practice in theory), the character of which also defines the award title.

To qualify for the award of BA (Hons) Animation students must:

1. Satisfy the University’s requirements for a Degree with Honours (see Undergraduate Awards Framework; regulations for undergraduate assessment) and additionally;
2. Progression between levels of study:

• Level 4

In order to progress to Level 5 of this course students must have completed and passed each Level 4 module at 40% or above.

• Level 5

In order to progress to Level 6 of this course students must have completed and passed each Level 5 module at 40% or above.

• Level 6

In order to achieve an honours degree award on this course students must have completed and passed each Level 6 module at 40% or above.

LEVEL 6 & DESIGNATION

BA (Hons) Animation

PART-TIME MODE OF STUDY

Part-time study is defined as 60 credits per year. Consequently, in part-time mode, the duration of study for a 360-credit degree will be 6 years. The pattern of study in this instance shall be as follows:

Year 1 – Two studio/atelier modules MD4001 & MD4001

Year 2 – CCS + subject discipline module CP4010 & MD4005

Year 3 – Two studio/atelier modules MD5001 & MD5001

Year 4 – CCS + subject discipline module CP5010 & MD5005

Year 5 – Project Development Workbook & Major Studio Project modules MD6001 & MD6002

Year 6 – CCS + Exhibition & Representation module CP6010 & MD6003

Appropriate prior experience and qualifications can be accredited, allowing direct entry to Year 2 of the degree, subject to available places.

All projects require some form of engagement with external clients, organisations or individuals to help you develop and broaden your portfolio-showreel and professional network. The course provides training on identifying employment and placement opportunities, but recommends that these be organised outside term time.

Animators have always been at the cutting edge of new developments in television, film, publishing, art, advertising, theatre and games. This Animation course prepares you for a career in any of these fields and is also excellent preparation for further research or study. The course is taught in the heart of London’s creative district with potential employers right at your doorstep. Animation is part of every corner of visual culture.

In addition to the University's standard entry requirements, you will normally be expected to obtain:

• A minimum of 280 UCAS points from at least two A level or equivalent level 3 qualifications in relevant art & design, humanities or social science subjects.

All applicants must be able to demonstrate proficiency in the English language. Applicants who require a Tier 4 student visa may need to provide a Secure English Language Test (SELT) such as Academic IELTS. For more information about English qualifications please see our English language requirements.

We encourage applications from International/EU students with equivalent qualifications.

We also accept mature students with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Suitable applicants living in the UK will be invited to a portfolio interview. Applicants living outside the UK will be required to submit a portfolio of work via email.

This course is also available as a four-year extended degree, the first year of which is the Foundation Year Art, Media, Design (W000).