Candidates for all MA courses are assessed on their existing qualities as demonstrated in their work and in their interview, as well as on their potential to benefit from the programme and to achieve MA standards overall. The assessment will consider: creativity, imagination and innovation evident in the work; ability to articulate the intentions of the work; intellectual engagement in relevant areas; appropriate technical skills; overall interview performance, including oral use of English.

The programme selects a challenging range of artists each year to facilitate cross-pollination between different and engaging means of expression through animation and moving image.

Applicants are normally expected to have a degree in art and design or equivalent experience.

Applicants must submit a selection of their moving image work, no longer than 15 minutes, demonstrating their aptitude for sequential thinking and directing abilities. Your particular role on any collaborative projects should be clearly indicated. The admissions board prefer to see complete films, to demonstrate your directorial potential rather than edited clips. Select your work carefully to demonstrate your strengths and indicate the direction you would like to develop.

A digital portfolio of support work demonstrating other aspects of your ideas and skills, which may include 3D objects, drawings, photographs, scripts, storyboards, etc., is helpful in the selection process. A shortlist of applicants for interview will be made from the portfolio submission.

If you are invited for interview, then you may bring additional material and original artwork and/or models, etc.

The profile of successful applicants to the programme is diverse and includes those with a background in science and architecture as well as those from animation, visual communication, documentary and fine art. This reflects the expanded nature of animation as a subject area, as well as the changing production methods, drawing scientists and artists closer together through shared interests and developing technology.

The entrance examination to the Royal College of Art is in two parts: Part One consists of a portfolio submission followed by an interview (if invited) in Part Two.

Part One: Portfolio submission

Note: PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR PORTFOLIO ONLINE ONLY.

Please ensure:

• Your online portfolio submission can be viewed on an Apple Macintosh computer running OSX5 or greater. The examiners will not have access to any other platforms.
• You have reviewed and checked that your submission works in the way you intend it to be seen on a different computer (i.e., not the computer you made the submission on, to check that your files have uploaded correctly to our server).
• The work can be assessed within a short time frame: examiners will look at your work for a maximum of 20 minutes.

Portfolio Requirements

All candidates are required to submit an online portfolio of work to be assessed by the programme’s senior staff team and student representatives.

• You must present a selection of animation/moving image work. This work must collectively be no longer than 15 minutes. Anything over 15 minutes will not be considered.
• The admissions board for Animation prefers to see complete films, to demonstrate your directorial potential rather than edited clips. Select your work carefully to demonstrate your strengths and indicate the direction you would like to develop.
• Applications to the Animation programme without moving image work cannot be considered.
• You may upload up to 20 individual projects or items to your portfolio. These may be moving image work, single images or presentations. You may add a gallery of six further images to support each of your projects. You should provide a description of a maximum of 100 words for each project image and a caption of up to 50 words for each of the gallery images.
• You must indicate clearly the exact role that you played in work that was created in collaboration.
• Images should be in an acceptable format (see formats below) to the following recommended dimensions:
  • width: minimum of  400 pixels
  • height: minimum of 400 pixels
  • file size: images no larger than 2MB, movies no larger then 80MB.
• Moving image work and images must be in the following formats: JPEG, PNG, MOV, MP4, M4V, website URL (please note PDF files are not suitable). Moving image work can also be submitted via a link to a Vimeo or other video hosting page.
• For each piece of work you must indicate:
  • Title
  • Medium
  • Date made
  • Size (cms)
  • Length (mins).

Part Two: Interview by invitation only

If you are invited for an interview you will be required to bring with you your physical portfolio of work submitted online and work in progress. For those invited but not able to attend an interview at the College easily (for reasons of travel distance), we can arrange an online, face-to-face Skype interview.