Animation

In University of the Arts’ Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program in Animation, you’ll be pushed beyond your comfort zone by participating in projects where you’ll collaborate with musicians, dancers, actors and other artists. Whether you create a traditional, stop-motion or computer-generated animation, you will work in a dynamic medium to tell the stories you feel passionate about to express your personal vision.

Working closely with award-winning professional filmmakers and animators and in collaboration with your peers, you’ll take animation classes that are a mixture of hands-on instruction, lectures, screenings and critiques. You can also take advantage of internships and opportunities to study away. When you graduate, you’ll do so with the skills to confidently pursue a career in animation. 

Students will explore the variety of techniques available to the current animator, hone traditional skills, learn how to tell engaging stories, create memorable characters and bring ideas to life that have never existed before. As an undergraduate student, you’ll get to make both a junior animated film and a senior animated thesis. The skills learned as an Animation major will allow you to adapt and create quality content as ideas become even more valuable than the techniques needed to present them.

You’ll also get instruction across disciplines by taking courses in film and illustration alongside your major courses. You’ll be able to use UArts’ production and technology spaces, like the newly opened, 5,600-square-foot Center for Immersive Media (CIM), animation and film studios, computer labs and two stop-motion studios among other cutting-edge spaces. Media Resources provides students with cameras, tripods, lights and other technology needed to succeed in coursework and beyond. 

 “I took Introduction to Computers for Object Makers with Rod McCormick. As an animation student, I found the class uniquely useful, as 3-D printing and laser cutting become more readily available for stop motion in the industry. Learning how to take a 2-D computer animation and convert each frame to physical objects in one day versus several was incredible.  All of the techniques and skills I learned in that class changed my way of attacking future projects.” -Neil Andruski ’20

The Animation degree now offers emphases in 
●    traditional 2-D drawn/digital animation,
●    3-D computer animation and 
●    stop-motion or experimental animation.