Борнмутский университет искусств, BA(Hons), Visual Effects Design and Production

Level 4

The BA (Hons) Visual Effects Design and Production course has been created in response to an industry demand for visual effects artists who possess strong observational skills and the ability to apply these skills in the composing of a final moving image.

In order to cultivate these abilities, the course aims to develop traditional art and design skills as part of a VFX training programme. You will experience a team-based production process that replicates industry best practice; including concept development, on-set data acquisition, asset building, animation and compositing.

At Level 4, we’ll introduce you to the underlying concepts and fundamental structural principles of visual effects work,. You’ll develop an ability to evaluate and interpret the application of complementary art and design skills within visual effects practice.

We’ll teach you the technical and technological disciplines necessary for visual effects work, helping to develop an appropriate knowledge of 2D and 3D software in preparation to develop new skills at Levels 5 and 6.

You’ll attend a series of practical workshops, lectures and seminars, building competencies in the generation of concepts, the construction of digital assets and the processing of live action footage.

Alongside processing moving imagery, you’ll develop an aesthetic awareness through observational drawing and painting, utilising both traditional materials and digital solutions. This helps to develop an ability to evaluate different approaches to solving production problems.

You practice is underpinned by an engagement with historical and cultural contexts, and you’ll develop essential research and study skills which help you develop an ability to present, evaluate and interpret information from multiple sources.

Level 5

In your second year, you’ll develop a more nuanced understanding of the specialist roles involved in a collaborative production process by working both independently and as part of a team.

You’ll build on the skills that you developed at Level 4, applying aesthetic awareness and technical knowledge in a production context that reflects industry best practice.You’ll work with increasing independence as part of a production team to take a visual effects sequence from concept and pre-visualisation stages through to live action acquisition, asset creation and compositing.

Production roles specialising in either 2D or 3D processes are negotiated with staff members and defined through the use of Learning Agreements, and you’ll be assessed on your individual contribution to your collaborative projects.

By deploying key techniques in processing imagery from multiple sources, you’ll begin to develop a specialist portfolio of skills relevant to an industry context. As part of the process of becoming an independent learner, there are also potential opportunities for industry placements or overseas study visits.

You’ll also work independently to research and develop your own visual effects sequence in preparation for a pitch process at Level 6. This developmental work will require the application of a range of established design techniques and research methods, including a sustained piece of academic writing, to effectively communicate ideas and identify limits of knowledge.

Level 6

At Level 6, you’ll demonstrate a systematic understanding of visual effects practice by applying your specialist skills to a collaborative production process. The intricate nature of visual effects design and production necessitates negotiating a complex body of knowledge, drawing on both artistic and technical skills in generating a final image sequence to an industry standard.

Effective team work is paramount in successfully achieving a professional standard of production, and Level 6 develops critical awareness of co-operative roles and personal responsibilities that are required to make an ethical practitioner.

There are opportunities for this collaborative production process to include working alongside other courses in the university. At this level, you’ll work more independently in your production role, requiring effective time-management and organisational skills to evaluate concepts, make judgements and frame appropriate questions to solve production problems.

Through your written Investigative Stud, you’ll engage in research activity, making appropriate use of literary and audio-visual resources in exploring the conceptual limits of their discipline. Individual research activity also takes the form of a Professional Development Portfolio, where students investigate an area of contemporary practice relevant to their career ambitions, and develop a portfolio appropriate for pursuing post-graduate study or initiating professional practice.

On completing our degree course, you’ll be able to apply your creativity and technical knowledge to enrich the storytelling aspects in a range of films and related projects.

• Foundation Diploma at Art and Design at Pass.
• IELTS minimum overall score of 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component (reading, writing, speaking, listening).

Britain is a leading country in the production of high quality visual effects for film. The British film industry is hungry for new talent and our Visual Effects course is designed to feed it with highly skilled graduates of the required professional standard.

Since the Harry Potter boom in the early 2000s, alongside a recent influx of new releases from studios such as Disney and Marvel, the Film and VFX industry has expanded at an exponential rate. This has firmly established the UK as a leading country for high quality Visual Effects work and created an unprecedented demand for fresh, highly trained graduate talent from the UK education system.

This course has been designed from the ground up by industry professionals specifically to address this demand, and its primary ethos is to create the quality required for employability within the industry. Underpinned by training in traditional artistic techniques such as drawing, colour theory, perspective, photography and composition, you will learn what it takes to create your own feature film quality visual effects.

This course shoots original material on a range of professional acquisition formats, ranging from Kodak celluloid film stock to the Arri Alexa digital cinematography camera, which is accepted as the industry standard for motion picture production.

Our 2D workflow uses Nuke for all compositing, and Maya / Zbrush and Arnold for 3D. Our colour pipeline is based on an industry model with custom LUTs to ensure accurate monitoring of colour in our fully calibrated VFX lab. Our dedicated industry level workstations are top of the range and are supported by our render farm, fibre network, and clustered storage.

Since the conception of this course in 2015, we have successfully placed students at both Framestore and Industrial Light and Magic in fully paid positions, as part of the teams creating VFX for movies such as “Dr Strange” and “Transformers”. The course prides itself on the currency of its staff and its links to the industry. You will be taught by industry professionals who are currently working on high profile feature films.

With an emphasis on photorealism, believability and integration, you will be taken through the process of designing and producing visual effects sequences to the highest possible level of professional scrutiny. We are lucky to have one of Europe’s leading special effects companies, Framestore, on our campus. From working on huge blockbusters like “Guardians of the Galaxy” to winning Oscars for their work on “Gravity”, Framestore are pushing British VFX to new heights – and they’re right next door!