University degrees: Postgraduate
Course length: 2 years
This unique two-year MA aims to equip students with the skills to write, direct and animate award-winning films.
This unique two-year MA aims to equip students with the skills to write, direct and animate innovative films. NFTS graduate films have won some of the most prestigious awards in animation including the BAFTA for Short Animation for the last five years in a row.
Graduates include Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park, whose debut A Grand Day Out was his NFTS graduation film, and Peppa Pig creator Mark Baker.
Students will collaborate with those in other specialisms to make several films, putting into practice the skills they learn during the course. In the second year, students have their own work spaces and equipment to make their graduation film, which are finished in professional sound stages and post-production facilities – with all production costs met by the School.
We are the only UK animation course based in a film studio, so we can cater for ambitious ideas.
All NFTS students can attend the School’s masterclasses programme, with recent guests including Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve), Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna, Diego Maradona), Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here, We Need to Talk About Kevin), Louis Theroux, and M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Glass).
This course is industry recognised by ScreenSkills, the industry-led skills body for the UK’s screen-based industries, and carries the ScreenSkills Select quality-mark which indicates courses best suited to prepare students for a career in the screen industries.
Our aim is to help you create films that will steer the animation industry into new and exciting directions. The first year is packed full of inspiring workshops led by talented filmmakers and industry professionals covering a range of topics, including improving your animation skills, writing better narratives and developing fresh approaches to design and techniques. In the second year, you will direct a full production team to bring your vision to life, using the school’s state-of-the-art production facilities.
We encourage all forms of visual storytelling; including drawn and stop-motion animation, life-size pixelation and even puppeteering. Students are inspired to push the boundaries; to find interesting new animated techniques and fresh approaches to storytelling.
Learning to work with a team is central to the course. Collaborative workshops with other filmmaking disciplines, help animation directors understand the role of each crew member and the skills they bring to the filmmaking process.
