MODULES
Foundation Year
CORE MODULES
- Professional Life (Mental Wealth)
- Art & Design Workshops, Processes & Skills
- Art & Design Studio Practice & Portfolio
- Art & Design Specialist Workshops, Processes & Skills
- Art & Design Specialist Studio Practice & Portfolio
- Art & Design Contextual Studies
Year 1
CORE MODULES
Documentary 1: Documentary and Representation (Creative Writing)
The module equips students with an understanding of how to engage with a wide range of themes through documentary forms. The module provides a context for documentary practice and problematises categories of representation, notions of 'truth' and 'realism' and facilitates civic engagement and involvement with the East London community.
Experimentation and Application 1A (Animation)
Aesthetics & Technologies: Practice as Research
Narrative 1: Narrative Fiction
This module examines forms of narrative and storytelling in the context of traditional and interactive media.
Case studies from various media such as television, cinema, gaming and social media are presented.
Narrative theory, such as the conventions of plot and character development, the representation of narrative action and the use of digital media are taught, culminating in a media production piece that embodies the theories and concepts students have learned.
Experimentation and Application 1B (Animation)
Mental Wealth: Agency 1
Developing the key psychological and physical determinants of human performance is increasingly critical for successful graduate-level employment, entrepreneurship and career progression in the 4th industrial revolution.
This module will provide students hoping to work in the creative industries with the opportunity to learn and apply the full range of skills, competencies and experience required for successful progression into in a range of potential future career areas.
Students will learn about conventions and expectations in the creative industries, focussing on areas specific to their programme of study. They will also advance their own personal professional development through taught and workshop activities, and explore possible strategies to further develop their reflective skills and self-awareness.
Students will have opportunity to select an in-house microbusiness to join in the role of 'Apprentice'. In this position they will focus on the importance of research in the creative industries. Students will practice key methods including digital and other research and qualitative methods used in industry today, including trends, news coverage and customer reviews. Students will also learn the conventions of research and analysis in order to develop a pitch or proposal in response to a client brief.
Year 2
CORE MODULES
Documentary 2: Experimental Documentary
This module aims to encourage you to experiment and develop a creative and critical approach to a range of media technologies. You will build on the practical and conceptual skills relevant to media production gained in previous modules and consider your own production work in relation to both historical and contemporary media practice. You will work to produce an experimental piece that incorporates exploration of different and imaginative ways to play with documentary form and content.
Advanced Experimentation and Applications (Animation)
Animated Short Film
You will apply the fundamental skills you learnt in level 4 in fresh contexts and develop your own, individual working practice by creating an animated short film.
This module enables you to explore more independent lines of enquiry while understanding the professional and cultural contexts of your work, providing you with insight and hands on experience of professional practice within a creative environment, to inform and place practice within a professional context, including visiting studios and feedback from industry practitioners.
The project enables you to develop interpersonal skills, communication and time management skills.
You will have opportunities to further develop and focus your working methods in animation, applying more advanced skills with an increased independence, enabling them to specialise in a particular technique or range of techniques.
Narrative 2: Advanced Narrative
This module provides the opportunity for students to develop their media narrative skills in a more advanced and professional context. Students will develop a project voicing themes of identity within contemporary culture. They will then be supported in key areas of project development and selection. Finally they will progress through all relevant stages of production. Narrative and conceptual structures will be delivered at a higher level than in Level 4 and technical support will be provided to enhance the students' craft skills relating to professional practice. The module will structure the development of key media skills as well as a deeper understanding of the creative process relating to the students' chosen narrative genre. The course will end with a peer group evaluation, enabling the students to critically reflect on their achievements a means of progression into Level 6.
Advanced Practice (Animation)
Year 3
CORE MODULES
Animation Pre-Production
This practical module focuses on the subject specific skills necessary to prepare any animation for production and is designed to prepare you for Final Major Project Development.
The Final Major Project gives you experience of an extended production. It encourages the further development of independence, originality and professionalism in the field of animation. The FMP is designed to prepare you for a creative and professional life after graduation, and to give an opportunity for you to create a project that expresses the full extent of your animation skills and your individual creative voice and present it to the wider world.
The project is split across modules throughout the academic year. This module deals with pre-production, and includes:
- storyboarding
- pitching and presentation
- animatic and scratch-sound
- working with, and giving creative direction to actors and sound designers
- character design
- animation tests, keyframes/models and proof of concept
- scheduling and workflow design
Final Project Development
Subject to validation.
Final Project Completion
Subject to validation.
Animation Post-Production
This module builds on work completed in the modules 'Final Project: Development' and 'Animation Pre-Production', developing the Final Major Project (FMP) into a completed artefact. Usually the FMP takes the form of a two to three-minute animated narrative film, but the structure of the module is open to various outcomes and is individually negotiated between the student and their tutor.
The FMP is designed to prepare you for a creative and professional life after graduation. It gives an opportunity for you to create a project that expresses the full extent of their animation skills, their individual creative voice and to present it to the wider world.
This module concerns production and post-production and includes:
- Animation
- Workflow planning/Asset management
- Editing
- Compositing
- Rendering/Exporting
- Industry Standards
- Presentation and Promotion
You will gain understanding of the professional aspects of a creative project and look beyond graduation to roles in the animation industry. You make a practical plan of action for after graduation using case studies, studio visits and visiting professionals.
Mental Wealth: Professional Life 3 (Rising East)
Developing the key psychological and physical determinants of human performance are increasingly critical for successful graduate-level employment, entrepreneurship and career progression in the 4th industrial revolution.
This module will provide students with the opportunity to apply the full range of skills, competencies and experience required for successful development to, and in, a range of potential future career areas.
Herein they will advance the areas identified at level 5 for their own personal professional development (including emotional, social, physical, cultural and cognitive intelligences) through taught and workshop activity.
Through engagement with the Career Passport, students will reflect on the success of the strategies that they employed to further develop their reflective skills, self-awareness, ‘life style’ and ‘self care’ approaches and where necessary improve their approaches.
Students will have opportunity to work on the live internal/external project, Rising East, in the role of Editor. In this position they will learn and begin to apply the cognitive, cultural and social intelligences developed elsewhere in their studies (and from external activities) as required in the workplace, namely cognitive flexibility, emotional resilience, motivation, ethical decision-making, managing your audience, coordinating with others, negotiation, creativity, active listening, attention, problem solving, research, synthesis and analysis.
Students will enact these capabilities by undertaking the role of section editor for Rising East. In this capacity they will take full responsibility for the content of a designated section of this news brand. With academic staff to monitor, support and direct their activities in line with legal, professional and ethical considerations, the student cohort will take the reins of Rising East across various publication platforms.
Aesthetics & Technologies: Professional Practices
The module provides an in-depth understanding of creative work cultures, and self-promotional strategies to help you establish personal branding for your own set of skills, experiences and practices. This module examines the Creative Industries and explores their organisation and institutional arrangements, their media forms, products and services, work practices and cultures. Here you will extend your skills, experience and self-awareness to prepare for a career in the Creative Industries through the application of learned skills to your career promotion and progression.
You will enhance your professional practice and self-branding skills set though a career development project which includes critical reflection and self-promotional strategies. The module provides an in- depth understanding of creative work cultures, and self-promotional techniques to help you establish personal branding for your own set of skills, experiences and practices.
