
This inspiring course in animation practice and critical exploration will introduce students to hands-on animation experience alongside conceptual insights, fostering pathways to creativity and technical processes.
Key details
Fees
- Early Bird Fee: £1080
- Regular Fee: £1200
Dates
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Dates for 2026 to be confirmed. Please register your interest to join our waiting list.
Location
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Online
Discover animation practice introduced through the lens of critical research.
This course is for aspiring, emerging or developing participants who are interested in broadening their knowledge and skills through animation practice.
Students will gain a conceptually enriched understanding of animation grounded in the practice of making and discovery, through the process of practical, critical and reflective research.
Expert-led sessions will guide participants through collaborative engagement with sequential processes, expanding ideas about what animation is, and what it can do.
About the course
What will you learn?
This is a short course designed to help you transition from undergraduate / industry into postgraduate Animation study. This course will give you a stimulating, creative and thought provoking insight into the critical thinking and practice skills necessary.
You will learn:
- Primary and secondary research relationship to ideas development
- To create short animated sequences using a variety of media
- An introduction to sound and editing to picture
- The importance of unpacking animation structure through animatics
How will you learn?
By talking, making and reading.
- This online short course is divided into six days over a three week period.
- Learning will take place in live sessions of two hours each, twice a week.
- You will learn through live talks, interactive workshops and homework.
- Participants will work in small groups for specific exercises.
The course is organised in synchronous sessions in a live virtual environment that combines various digital platforms and tools.
Zoom
Using the videoconferencing service Zoom, the RCA's esteemed academics and facilitators deliver a mix of:
- live lectures
- case studies
- guided assessments
- presentations
Participants interact with the faculty and peers in breakout rooms in real time.
Miro
Participants engage in cross-functional team work with the use of visual collaboration tools.
Through the online whiteboard platform Miro, participants get to:
- interact with various formats and templates
- plan and brainstorm ideas
- create processes and workshop activities in the digital workspace
Moodle
The College's learning platform Moodle is personalised according to the course's requirements to provide participants with a secure integrated system where they can access the course content.
The hub hosts a range of useful resources to enable the learning experience, including comprehensive timetables, pre-reading materials, course slides, curated videos, tutorials and session recordings.
Slack
Participants stay connected and communicate via the channel-based messaging platform Slack throughout the whole duration of the course.
In this space, the academics, facilitators and delegates get to network, plan the course activities, share documents and files during the live sessions or offline.
Who should attend?
- Cross disciplinary graduates wanting to explore animation
- Junior or emerging creatives, or production professionals wanting to work with moving image
- Artists keen to explore moving image into their practice
- Anyone with an interest in the way animation is developed and made
- Graduates interested in moving towards Post Graduate or Masters study in animation
Course Outcomes
You will come away from this course with:
- An understanding of animation structure gained through practice.
- Experience the environment and methodologies of the MA Animation programme at the RCA.
- An understanding of Practice as Research as methodology.
- Experimental drawing and fieldwork techniques.
- Present your work and engage with feedback.
- Improve your verbal presentation skills.
- The value of reflection in practice.

Bunny Schendler
Visiting Lecturer at the RCA
Bunny’s experience, during more than 20 years in the animation industry, ranges across media from 2D traditional and digital animation to experimental documentary using photographs, computer game software and animated documentary. Collaborative, often community-focused projects have also been central to her practice, which she enjoys, sharing through teaching, whilst continuing to develop independent projects.