During their first year on the MA Animation course, students take part in several workshops that train their animation skills and techniques. Students work in small groups and learn to experiment with image, sound and mixed materials. Samples of these workshops can be seen on this site.

A brief description of each first-year workshop follows.

Image Workshop

For this project students are asked to discover a ‘small object of desire’ through the use of film / photography and image manipulation. Students work within certain limitations; they are restricted to working within the non-digital environment. Traditional drawing methods are limited to a minimum and no model making is allowed. Apart from these restrictions, students are free to experiment and explore the photographic medium.

It is designed to explore the photographic processes to produce images for the moving image. The use of light and the objects become the pencil. Students produce and intervene with images in a non-digital environment. Explore the creation of image and movement without the concerns of the interaction of sound, characterisation or story.

The ideas of experimentation, play, discovery and happy accidents feature heavily.

All projects are realised on 16mm film.

Sound Workshop

In animation, visual elements and the soundtrack share an excitingly close partnership. Sound plays a paramount role in defining the pace, the characters and the spaces of a film.

In the 1st year Sound workshop, students collaborate in groups of two or three to create sound pieces. The main idea is to explore ways that sound shapes space, time, textures etc. By means of sound recording and editing, students experiment freely to develop their specific sound worlds and sound language. The projects encompass the whole process, from conceiving a piece together, through recording, shaping and mixing it.

Space, time and emotion are key areas explored in this workshop.

Storyboard Workshop

The storyboard workshop takes place over 4 days. The workshop aims to give students decision-making experience with tight deadlines.

Students write their own stories that have to work as text, they are then adapted and visualised in storyboards. Sound is given equal consideration to the image. There are intentional restrictions that encourage spontaneity and experience directing skills.

The opportunity for students to develop their storytelling skills is coupled with an exploration of form and structure without the pressure of production.

Lip-Synch Workshop

Embodying voice.

Lip sync in its simplest form is breaking down sequences of dialogue into phonetics, then synchronising mouth shapes to the soundtrack.
We not only use our mouths to talk a large amount of information can be conveyed by body language, gesture and in this case animation and design.

In this project students use pre-recorded interviews from the Imperial War Museum Archive to explore and interpret characterisation and acting.

The Lip-synch workshop is a two week exercise during Term 1 of the MA Animation course.

Drawing in Animation

Click here to find out more about Drawing in Animation.