Embracing all aspects of animated film making, this animation degree simply makes perfect sense if you’re an aspiring animator.
Animation is at the heart of the movie industry, from the latest blockbuster to the small budget indie. Here you will develop your vision as an artist, animator, designer and director, equipping yourself with the essential skills to establish yourself in the animation industry. You'll be encouraged to experiment and be given the space to explore your own creativity and develop your own style. You’ll study across a broad range of animation practice, including traditional and digital 2D, motion graphics and stop motion, as well as 3D computer animation and even working directly onto 16mm film.
While studying animation you'll combine both theory and practice to develop your skills and knowledge. In class discussions and lectures, you'll learn about the history of animation, building your understanding of the changing practices of animation and being introduced to new concepts around animation and games.
When it comes to practical work, you'll develop and consolidate your own approach to animation in our state-of-the-art animation studios. Using building your own animated films as part of your portfolio development module. Using industry standard software you'll build and refine your technical skills with a focus on designing and directing your own animated films. You'll also learn storytelling, scriptwriting and characterisation alongside film and sound editing techniques to convey compelling narratives.
You’ll learn alongside our BAFTA winning academic team who all work professionally in film making, each with their own set of skills in long and short animation, commercials, TV shows, motion graphics and music videos. They have worked with companies like Dreamworks, Warner Bros, Cartoon Network and the BBC with nominations and wins across events such as Cannes Film Festival and London International Animation Festival.
While you’re learning, you’ll be matched with a Personal Tutor directly related to your course. You’ll also get support from our Student Learning and Graduate Academic Assistants, who have experience in your subject area. Full time specialist technicians and technical tutors with in-depth professional experience will support you during workshops and studio practice.
We have strong links with UK and international animation companies, and our industry partners even sponsor final year students and give specialist workshops and lectures. You'll have the opportunity to build your network, as well as showcasing your work to employers within the creative industry at events, festivals and our end of term Degree Show. Our graduates have gone on to work on such films as Wes Anderson's 'Isle of Dogs', as well as animation companies like Lupus Film, Tiger Aspect Productions and Passion Pictures.
If you're passionate about animation and determined to succeed in a high pressure, fast paced environment, our BA in animation can set you up with the skills and support you'll need to succeed.
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On this course you will study a broad range of animation practice including:
In your first year you will develop a personal approach to animation and learn to apply an understanding of film language, narrative and the technical processes of animation to the creation of your own animation sequences. You will learn about changing practices in the history of animation and explore and experiment with different forms of graphic media.
In your second year you will further develop your animation practice and begin to identify specific areas of interest. The second year of study gives you the opportunity to refine your technical and problem-solving skills. In the Digital Cultures module you will be introduced to a range of concepts regarding animation in games and play, particularly in relation to computer games.
In your final year you will consolidate your skills to a professional standard and fully prepare for a career in the animation industry, identifying potential career paths and preparing a graduation showreel, portfolio and promotional material.
You will learn to:
This module will introduce the core issues in the history of animation and computer graphics. You will survey the changing practices, aesthetics and accompanying theories and enable you to develop research skills and engage critically with the topic.
This module gives you an exciting foundation in the Fundamentals of Animation. We explore visual storytelling in detail and the importance of experimentation, research and development in Animation film making. You are methodically taken through the technical principles of analogue and digital 2D Animation, Stop Motion and 3D Computer Animation and learn a range of industry standard software relevant to animation production, in a way that is accessible, creative and rewarding. Alongside the core teaching, there are many exciting intensive workshops involving collaboration with students from BA 3D Animation and Games, and BA Illustration.
This module investigates contemporary workflows in the Animation industry through a series of intensive workshops, including individual and group work. This includes a deeper exploration of film language and the importance of characterisation in story development and design. Building on the skills developed in Year 1 you will work on a challenging Advanced Animation Skills Workshop and a collaborative Mixed Media Animation Workshop. As the year progresses you will collate and present your investigations in a Two Minute Animated Film. This curriculum aims to be varied and surprising, encouraging the nurturing of individual art practices and group working. Through this succession of technical and artistic experimentations, you gain the confidence to begin approaching studios while establishing your own collectives and professional networks.
This module aims to introduce a range of theories and concepts relating to games and play. You will further develop an understanding of academic research methods and the module will include an examination of psychological and cultural aspects of computer games.
This module combines group and individual projects and aims to reinforce, extend and consolidate previously acquired skills and knowledge to achieve a confident, independent approach to animation practice at a professional level. We invite established creative industry professionals to set live briefs and help you to hone your skills as emerging animation professionals. You can choose direct your own Graduation Film, working as an independent animation director or alternatively form a partnership or collaboration with other students from your cohort. During your final year you will cultivate highly articulate analysis, evaluation and discussion with an explicit critical understanding of current animation practice. Identify potential career paths and anticipate the expectations of the animation industry in the presentation of a graduation film and show reel, portfolio and promotional material.
This module aims to enable you to identify and deliver a research project that is the product of sustained and creative engagement both with a range of research resources and an area of studio-practice. The module will consolidate skills of project identification, research organisation and development, time management, written and visual analysis and the presentation of a critical argument/thesis. The module further consolidates the development of skills required for autonomous learning.
See the course specification for more information about typical course content outside of the coronavirus outbreak:
Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.
Check out recent work by current students and alumni at the MDX Animation online showcase.
Each year we take final year projects from students on BA Animation to be displayed at the Arts and Creative Industries degree show, usually held at the Truman Brewery.
See the work of our BA Animation students in our 2019 showreel
See the work of our BA Animation students in our latest showreel!
Third year animation students have been awarded a jury prize for their film 'Abducted by Aliens' in a film competition for TV Licensing UK. The competition saw animators bring to life the most implausible and bizarre excuses people have given for not having a TV licence.
Showreel of the best animation produced by our students in 2017
Take a look at the creative work produced by our Animation students
Erica Hodne
Kate Balchin
Middlesex has strong links with art and design employers. Our industry partners sponsor final year students and give visiting lectures. Hundreds of art and design agencies, organisations and other employers attend our final year degree show each year. Animation at Middlesex will prepare you for a career in many areas of the animation industry, with roles including:
| Animation Director | Motion Graphic Designer | 2D animator | Stop Motion Animator |
| Games Animator | Modeler | Rigger | Renderer |
| After Effects Artist | Producer | Compositor | CGI animator |
Our students have gone on to work in roles where animation skills are highly valued, for example, creating visuals for live music tours, concerts, events, theatre productions and operas. The BA Animation also enables entrepreneurial students to set up their own business. To name a few of our alumni and their work:
Most recently, our 3rd year student, Zachary Aghaizu, won the London Adobe Creative Jam 2018. The event was hosted by the BBC at Portland Place and with presentations from top Adobe executives including David Simons, the man who invented After Effects. There were 11 teams competing and each student got the chance to work as part of a creative team with two BBC designers. The teams were given a live brief with just three hours to create a new animated logo for community arts charity WAC Arts.
Work experience in all forms greatly improves graduate employment prospects and we encourage all our students to undertake work experience during their studies whether through part-time work, volunteering or other means. The Animation department also organises live projects with industry practitioners so you can experience working on professional creative briefs.
Our specialist Employability Service and London location ensure that every year our students and graduates have access to an excellent range of work experience opportunities.
Our Employability Service can help you to develop your employability skills and get some valuable work experience. We provide workshops, events and one-to-one support with job hunting, CVs, covering letters, interviews, networking and so on. We also support you in securing part-time work, placements, internships and volunteering opportunities, and offer an enterprise support service for those looking to start their own business.
Our specialist facilities are recognised as among the best in country and include:
You can also hire specialised equipment for your assignments. There is a wealth of specialist technical help with professionals dedicated to helping you achieve excellence in our workshop areas.
Dedicated Animation studios
The Special Collections are held in the Materials Room in the Sheppard Library and is a supervised room for research and inspiration.
Jonathan Hodgson is an internationally acclaimed, BAFTA and Luna de Valencia award winning animation director who combines teaching with a successful career in the animation industry. A Royal College of Art graduate, he has directed numerous award winning short films, high profile advertising campaigns, TV motion graphics and was art director on the children's TV series Charlie and Lola.
In 2019, he won his second BAFTA for his animated short, Roughhouse. He has also won Best British Film at London International Animation Festival with his short animation film Roughhouse. He has designed and directed the animation 'The Trouble with Love and Sex', which explores relationships using audio from a series of Relate counselling sessions, and was the first full length animated documentary to be broadcast on British TV.
Clients include: BBC1, BBC2, Channel Four, Diesel Jeans, Saab USA, Bell Atlantic, United Bank of Switzerland, Vanguard, the Home Office and Persil. His specialist area of research and practice is animated documentary. He teaches Classical and Digital 2D animation, After Effects, Sound Design and Animation Direction.
www.hodgsonfilms.com
Triple BAFTA nominated director Osbert Parker is perhaps best known for his signature style of using cut-out animation mixed with live action for commercials and short films. Film Noir was nominated for a BAFTA in 2006 and also nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival. Yours Truly won best short animated film at the British Animation Awards, was also nominated for a BAFTA in 2008 and selected for Sundance. Parker is a 2008 UK Film Council Breakthrough Brit and his commercial credits include such clients as Coca-Cola, Nike, Budweiser, Orange, The World Wildlife Fund and MTV. As well as specialising in Stop Motion he also teaches Animation Direction.
Chris Shepherd is a BAFTA nominated television/film writer and director. He is mainly known for combining live action with animation. His work fuses comedy with commentary on the darker side of human nature. In 2017 he directed an animated film, as a tribute to playwright Joe Orton. Watch the trailer.
Susan Light studied Fine Art at Leeds Polytechnic and San Francisco State University. A practising painter working from a studio in NW London, her paintings have been selected for the BP Portrait Award, the Ruth Borchard Collection and Hunting Art Prizes amongst others. She teaches painting from her studio and drawing on the Illustration and Animation courses at Middlesex University.
Guy Sherwin trained as a fine artist and brings a radical and exploratory approach to his preferred medium of film. His work investigates qualities of light, time and sound often in live performance with his partner Lynn Loo. They have toured programmes of their multi-projection films to venues in Europe, North America and S.E.Asia.
Dr Lilly Husbands received her doctorate in Film Studies from King’s College London. Her research and teaching is concerned with closely investigating contemporary experimental animation, focusing particularly on the varieties of non-normative aesthetic experience that such works invite and cultivate. Her interests include experimental cinema and video, animation and special effects, film aesthetics, film philosophy, spectatorship, and film music. She has published widely on experimental animation in Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ), Frames Cinema Journal and Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media.
Isabela Barszcz is an award winning polish animation director and a graduate from Middlesex University. She is regularly engaged in collaborations with musicians, working on music videos and visuals for projections. Izabela‘s most recent project ”Mannequin”, a new video opera about human cloning, was premiered at Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival in London.
Harriet is a Middlesex graduate of 2014, who worked as a Character Design Assistant on ‘The Amazing World of Gumball’ children’s television series. She contributes in the University by helping students progress and learn new techniques and assisting lecturers in their teaching. She works on her own professional freelance practice, on music video projects and illustration.
We’ll carefully manage any future changes to courses, or the support and other services available to you, if these are necessary because of things like changes to government health and safety advice, or any changes to the law.
Any decisions will be taken in line with both external advice and the University’s Regulations which include information on this.
Our priority will always be to maintain academic standards and quality so that your learning outcomes are not affected by any adjustments that we may have to make.
At all times we’ll aim to keep you well informed of how we may need to respond to changing circumstances, and about support that we’ll provide to you.
Start: October 2021, EU/International induction: September 2021
Duration: 3 years full-time
Code: WP15
Start: October 2021, EU/International induction: September 2021
Duration: 3 years full-time
Code: W220
Start: October 2021, September 2021: EU/INT induction
Duration: 3 years full-time
Code: BA: W24Z, BSc: W24X
