MA Animation
Royal College of Art
Key Information
Campus location
London, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
1 year
Pace
Full time
Tuition fees
Request info
Application deadline
Request info *
Earliest start date
Sep 2024
* “As the RCA received a high number of applications we encourage you to apply as early as possible to secure your place on your programme”
* visit the RCA website to find out about fees for this programme as well as scholarship and funding opportunities
Open Days and Prospective Student Events
To provide prospective students with opportunities to find out about the RCA experience and programmes, we run a number of on-campus and online open days as well as events in various countries around the world.
Introduction
To provide prospective students with opportunities to find out about the RCA experience and programs we run several on-campus and online open days as well as events in various countries around the world. You can find out about upcoming events or watch replays of past open days on the RCA website.
Develop your creative expertise to influence how audiences see and understand the social, political, and cultural animated worlds and experiences you create
The MA Animation program at the Royal College of Art has a world-class reputation for artistic, director-led creative practice and innovative risk-taking and our students also explore the increasingly porous borders between animation, virtual reality, augmented reality, or new media art. The program maintains an ethos and environment of experimentation and creativity built on a foundation of social and cultural interrogation and contextual and critical thinking.
By empowering you to navigate rapid cultural and technological changes, we encourage the exploration of diverse narrative stances, from direct storytelling to playful abstraction. You'll gain expertise in various techniques, concepts, and canons.
Our world-class program team and state-of-the-art facilities support your journey, enabling you to explore enduring historical relations with material-based media like painting, drawing, illustration, and sculpture – the core of animation practice. Digital tools, deep learning processes, sound, display practices, and film language enhance these traditional media. We engage with various screen-based and related forms, including installations, projection mapping, VR, AR, extra-cinematic animation, theatre environments, sci-tech visualization tools, and the spatial politics of citizen science games or apps. You will grasp opportunities from animation’s increasing pervasiveness and shape how your audiences perceive and understand the worlds and experiences you create.
Throughout the program, we challenge and encourage you to engage in innovative practice-oriented research, paying close attention to the nuances of cultures, ethics, diversity, identities, traditions, environments, and futures. Our students engage in diverse interdisciplinary contexts, spanning drama, literature, philosophy, fine and applied arts, film and media theory, art history, STEM disciplines, and architecture. By deepening your understanding of animation, you'll develop a critical approach to your practice, intellectually challenging yourself with fresh ideas to broaden and influence social, political, and cultural perspectives through creative engagement.
Curriculum
Unite include:
- Animation Forms, Methods & Contexts
- Making Worlds with Others
- Critical Non/Fiction and Experimental /Expanded Practices
- AcrossRCA (College-wide unit)
Program Outcome
What will I learn?
Structured around practice-as-research, experimentation and constructive critique, the curriculum has a discursive approach and a particular emphasis on developing creative time-based content informed by collaboration, questioning, exchange and process exploration.
Supported on your journey by a world-class programme team and state-of-the-art facilities, you are enabled to explore enduring historical relations with the material-based media of painting, drawing, illustration, and sculpture – the ‘stuff’ of animation practice – that is enhanced by digital tools and deep learning processes as well as refinements in sound, display practices and film language. We engage with many screen-based and related forms you may want to explore, from installations, projection mapping, VR and AR, extra-cinematic animation and theatre environments, sci-tech visualisation tools, and the spatial politics of citizen science games or apps. You will grasp the opportunities arising from animation’s increasing pervasiveness and hone your influence on how your audiences see and understand the worlds and experiences you create. Together with your peers and students from other programmes, you will experience a collaborative professional environment and community of practice that is equitable, encouraging, convivial, challenging and confidence-building.
You will be challenged and encouraged to engage in innovative practice-oriented research sensitive to understanding and articulation of the nuances of cultures, ethics, diversity, identities, traditions, environments and futures. Our students engage in interdisciplinary contexts of drama, literature, philosophy, fine and applied arts, film and media theory, art history, STEM disciplines and architecture. You will deepen your understanding of animation to develop your own critical approach to your practice, and challenge yourself intellectually with new ideas to broaden and influence social, political and cultural perspectives through creative engagement. MA Animation is pedagogically conceived and strategically positioned to foster our students’ aspirations and creative transformations as ethically minded thinkers and professionally astute creative artists, filmmakers and problem solvers. You will join a community engaged in dialogues with new perspectives on the persuasive potential of animation in the digital humanities and STEAM disciplines.
Admissions
Curriculum
Programme structure
The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College Units that enable you to build a clear sense of communication methods, practices and contexts in relation to your own work.
Term 1
In Term 1, you will undertake a programme unit on Animation Forms, Methods & Contexts, which enhances your knowledge and disciplinary and interdisciplinary expertise in key critical contexts and a range of practices and research methods and approaches within animation moving image practices.
Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit. See below for more details.
Term 2
The Making Worlds with Others School-wide unit will allow you to work alongside students within and across the School. These are balanced with a programme-specific unit, Critical Non/Fiction and Experimental /Expanded Practices, which is designed to enable you to build on the learning and explorations from Term 1 to situate and refine your practice with appropriate professional, intellectual, technological and creative contexts. Normally during Term 2, you will develop a project proposal and Production Plan that articulates your ambitions for an independent research project.
Term 3
In Term 3 you will apply what you have learned in your engagement in the production of your Independent Research Project, which will be completed as a self-determined body of work negotiated in collaboration with academic and technical staff.
Program Tuition Fee
Rankings
The Royal College of Art has been ranked the number 1 university for art & design internationally for the 9th consecutive year, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 – the largest world-wide survey of academic and industry opinion.