Animation
Whether you want to be a filmmaker, animator or modeller our course provides a comprehensive and immersive learning experience that will elevate your current skills and equip you with innovative tools to redefine the boundaries of storytelling and bring your artistic visions to life. Discover your voice, take creative risks and join a vibrant animation community.
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Key Course Details
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Start Date
September
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Location
Cardiff
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Campus Code
B
Fees
Home students
£11,060*
International students
£17,900*
- Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
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Start Date
September
-
Location
Cardiff
-
Campus Code
B
Fees
Home students
£1,229*
- Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
MA Animation is a place to hone your craft and push your creative practice further, in 2D, CG, or Stop Motion, or a combination of these, and help you build on your existing skills and turn bold ideas into powerful, well-crafted stories.
DESIGNED FOR
MA Animation is designed for graduates, career-changers, and professionals—whether you're specialising in animation, moving into the field, developing industry expertise, or preparing for teaching and research. The course supports a broad spectrum of ambitions, from strengthening your portfolio to advancing into doctoral study, academic roles, or creative leadership positions.
Career Paths
- Animator (2D, CG and Stop Motion)
- Director/Producer
- Layout/Previs Artist
- Modeller and Rigger
- Teacher/Lecturer
Skills taught
- Animation
- Collaboration and Communication
- Networking
- Project Management
- Research and Innovation
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Course Highlights
Module Overview
From idea to final rendering, our MA Animation course equips students with in-depth knowledge and abilities in essential components of animation production. The course curriculum, which covers historical, practical and theoretical aspects of animation as an art form, is presented weekly on-campus to allow for hands-on learning, collaboration and support.
Animation Exploration
In this module, you'll begin shaping your ideas around your future career goals. You'll develop your unique creative voice as you take concepts through key pre-production stages such as scripting, character design and storyboarding - leading to a professional-standard pitch proposal.
Professional Practice: Animation
This module helps you define your place in the animation industry post-graduation. You’ll explore current pipelines across various techniques and project types, before identifying a role that aligns with your ambitions. You’ll gain a clear understanding of industry expectations, trends and the skills required in your chosen path.
Animation Application
Here, you’ll refine your personal production process in your chosen specialism, whether it’s character design, modelling, rigging or storyboarding across 2D, CG or Stop Motion. You'll engage with vital production stages like layout and clean-up, producing practical outcomes using industry-standard software.
Animation Specialisation
This module invites you to advance an area of professional practice through experimentation, in-depth research and critical analysis.
Major Project: Animation
This is your opportunity to showcase your creative, technical and intellectual strengths in your chosen specialism and medium. Choose from three outcome pathways:
- Portfolio – ideal if you want to present image-based work like concept art or storyboards.
- Showreel – perfect for demonstrating moving-image skills like character animation or rigging.
- Short Film – best for displaying a range of abilities, such as directing, producing or collaborating on original content.
Animation Review
In this reflective module, you’ll critically examine the development of your Major Project. You'll evaluate the challenges you faced, the research you conducted, and your role in shaping the final outcome - connecting your creative process with meaningful insights and context.
Course Highlights
How you’ll learn
The course is structured over three semesters if you're studying full-time, or six semesters if you're part-time. Throughout each semester, you'll take part in lectures, seminars, workshops, tutorials and critiques. A significant amount of your time will be spent working hands-on in our dedicated animation studios. You'll be assessed on how well you apply your knowledge to practical outcomes, while also developing essential soft skills aligned with industry standards. You’ll regularly receive formative feedback through informal presentations to staff and your peers, helping you grow your confidence and refine your work.
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Teaching staff
Our highly skilled and experienced staff are active practitioners and researchers, and have vast industry experience working on a variety of animation projects in a range of techniques (2D, CG and Stop Motion). Continuous staff development and regular connection with industry partners ensure that all staff members are up to date in their areas of expertise, and that students are exposed to curriculum that reflects current industry practises.
Dr Brian Fagence, Lecturer
Dr Leonie Sharrock, Senior Lecturer
Charles Rawlins, Technical Instructor
Graham Griffiths, Lecturer
Gustavo Arteaga, Technical Instructor
Jonathan Edwards, Lecturer
Matthew Gravelle-Eagles, Senior Lecturer
Nick Hood, Lecturer
Stan Evens, Technical Instructor
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Placements
We encourage work placement opportunities through our strong industry connections with the animation industry and are directly associated with numerous award-winning companies on our doorstep in Cardiff, including Beryl Productions International, Bait Studio, Picl Animation and Winding Snake Productions. Students have secured work experience at notable UK animation companies, including Aardman, Animortal Studio, and Calon. Local excursions are scheduled to exhibitions, festivals and studios, including Bad Wolf Studios, Cloth Cat, Painting Practice and Wales Interactive. Student participation at Cardiff Animation Festival broadens exposure, while live briefs and competitions provide valuable mentorship, networking and promotional opportunities.
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Facilities
Cardiff Campus is situated in the heart of a thriving arts industry, providing students endless opportunities both during and after graduation. Our cutting-edge facilities include a dedicated animation floor featuring studios with high-spec PCs and Wacom Cintiq tablets, collaborative networking spaces, Green Screen and Life Drawing rooms, Motion Capture suite and 2D and Stop Motion filming rooms. Students have access to industry-standard software, including Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk Suite and TVPaint, while UniApps allows software access on any device at any location. Equipment Loans provide a range of equipment for hire such as cameras, iPads, computers, lightboxes and Wacom tools.
Equipment
At our Cardiff Campus we have a vast range of equipment that you will be trained to use as part of your course. To help support your studies we have a Media Loans facility that allows you to hire the equipment, at no cost, for you to then use for your assignments and practical work. We have both basic and high-end film and photography cameras, portable lighting and sound equipment as well as a range of professional studio recording microphones, instruments and associated equipment to use in our music studios or on location. The team of technical officers and instructors are also available to help you with any queries and technical issues.
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ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Typical qualification requirements:
A good Honours degree in a relevant discipline or appropriate professional qualification; or an HND/HNC and relevant experience; or equivalent international qualifications. Those without such qualifications will be considered on an individual basis, where prior experience will be taken into account. All applicants will be invited to a portfolio-based interview, which should include a showreel of recent work. During the interview, applicants will be expected to outline and discuss the project proposal for the Independent Study module and/or major project.
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.
English language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 4 overall and a minimum of 4 in each component or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
We're here to help
Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.
Fees and Funding
£11,060
per year*£17,900
per year*£1,229
per 20 credits*Additional Costs
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
* Obligatory
£200-300
Optional – Students have access to a wide range of industry standard and specialist software on campus. UniApps also provides students with on-demand access to a wide range of software licences on any device at any location.
£150-£250
Optional – Students have access to a variety of art materials that are specific to each module.
£200
Optional – The library provides access to a wide range of recommended books, DVDs, journals, magazines and online resources.
£1,000-£2,000
Optional – Students have access to high-spec PCs and Wacom Cintiq tablets on campus. Equipment Loans also allows students to hire out equipment, including iPads, laptops and Wacom tools. All assignment work can be completed using the facilities provided.
£40-£100
Recommended – Students are encouraged to constantly back up their work to their own personal storage device/service since university computers are regularly cleaned to maintain maximum performance. The cost is determined by the size of the digital files that must be stored.
£50-£100
Optional – Trips do not feed directly into the learning required in any given module. Students who do not take these opportunities will not be disadvantaged.
£200-£1000
Optional – Trips do not feed directly into the learning required in any given module. Students who do not take these opportunities will not be disadvantaged.
£200-£300
Optional – Stop Motion students may incur additional costs depending on the material they choose for fabrication. However, this is determined on an individual basis.
Media Loans
Access industry-standard cameras, lighting, sound and recording gear, supported by free Media Loans and experienced technicians. We have everything you need to help you experiment, refine and bring your work to life with confidence.
University Quality Assurance
At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.
If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.
Studying at USW
Our courses are designed with industry leaders and provide the practical skills and experiences industry demands. Our flexible courses reflect the need for life-long learning. If you value education in practice, not just in theory, then USW is for you.
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Success for Film and Animation Students at RTS Cymru Awards
USW students and graduates have secured eight prestigious accolades at the Royal Television Society (RTS) Cymru Awards, celebrating creativity, innovation and storytelling at the heart of Welsh television. Their award-winning projects spanned entertainment, drama, comedy, and factual storytelling, underscoring the university's commitment to nurturing creative talent.
How to apply
There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).
International admissions
Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.
