About the Animation and Digital Arts Program

"Students of Tisch Asia's MFA in animation and digital arts will focus on people, gestures, postures, style, and expressions and ways to animate a puppet, a digital character or even a robotic device. They will explore new forms of storytelling using real-time and interactive technologies."

Jean-Marc Gauthier, Assistant Arts Professor - www.tinkering.net

The animation program is open to people with no animation background. We encourage candidates with diverse professional and educational experiences, coming from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. For example, this includes and is not limited to filmmakers, video artists, installation artists, print makers, painters, sculptors, architects, journalists, engineers, storytellers, biologists, physicians, ethnologists, educators, researchers, entrepreneurs, musicians, actors, dancers, computer scientists, programmers, technologists, designers, or writers.

Explore a sandbox of advanced techniques and interactive digital technologies

Students are immersed in a unique creative environment that teaches the traditional forms of the art of animation and explores a sandbox of advanced techniques and digital technologies. From capturing the motion of a dancer to animating facial expressions following a human voice, students explore ways to re-create motion and to create relationships through storytelling. Students earn a Master of Fine Arts in Animation and Digital Arts.

Immersion both into traditional forms of art and new forms of storytelling

At the beginning of the program, students are immersed in both the art and craft of animation. Classes focus on working with traditional media – hand drawing, painting, sculpture - according to traditional forms of arts. Students also learn to master digital animation and video techniques for observation, capture, analysis and visualization of motion from real life.

Students complete a short animated film project each semester.

After the first year, students focus on the completion of a thesis film. Classes cover the development phase and how to draw the map of a story, how to design animated characters and how to transform a story into spatial experiences. Students may also learn how to produce animation for the web in order to promote and broadcast a professional portfolio.

New perspectives through collaboration

As students progress in the program, they are involved in more collaborative projects. Students explore new perspectives for animation in close relationship with professionals from the industry. Classes also cover advanced animation topics including animation for interactive storytelling and gaming, animation for specific fields (i.e. scientific visualization), procedural animation and programming for animation.