University degrees: Postgraduate
Course length: 2 years full-time
This course develops individual creativity and teaches technical skills essential for a career in film and television.
The production designer plays a vital role in creating real or imagined worlds on the screen. This course develops individual creativity and teaches technical skills essential for a career in film and television.
“The NFTS remains one of the richest seams of creative talent and ideas under one roof.” Paul Kirby, production designer on Captain Phillips, Bastille Day and Kingsman: The Secret Service.
The NFTS Production Design department is a fully equipped design studio, with students designing for live action shoots, using traditional and digital design techniques. They will collaborate with those in other specialisms to make several films and practical projects – with all production costs met by the School.
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.
Uniquely in the UK, our MA Production Design students study alongside students of other filmmaking disciplines, engaging in a series of productions where working methods replicate professional practice.
The advent of digital technology has brought in new design tools and ways of working and this course promotes a lively interface between old and new methods. 3D and 2D computer techniques and Concept Art are taught alongside traditional skills such as set sketching, orthographic draughting, design geometry and model-making.
The course offers the opportunity to specialise in Concept Art, particularly in the second year. Design students apply their skills to live action and animation films, television programmes, games and commercials, in the studio and on location, using built sets and green screen. Relevant business and management skills are also taught, equipping students to manage a small art department, its budget, personnel and logistical schedules, studio procedures and set decorating. Studio visits and placements familiarise students with a working art department and inspire them with actual film sets.
