My current ideas after finishing BA Animation at LCC is to continue and do a masters. Since being in education has always been a productive and inspirational environment for me, the people I have met and conversations I have are extremely important to the development of my practice. Therefore doing a masters will help in giving me experience and maintaining this level of development in a manner where I feel comfortable, it gives me the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. Whereas in a professional environment there is less room for experimentation on this level. I am also unsure of where I want to go with my practice after university, my thoughts currently are hanging between working freelance or becoming part of a company in a specific position. Working freelance and having my own style has always been important to me, in the sense of people approaching me out of their own interest for the work I produce. However I have always had an interest in working commercially since when I see adverts or pieces I like online or on TV I think about the team behind it and what it would be like becoming part of this group. In the way a project works its way through different groups of people in a production line is interesting and overseeing something like this to ensure it achieves the brief. Therefore after research and talking to alumni some of the masters on offer at RCA have caught my attention.
MA Animation
Since I am still constantly continuing to develop my own animation style it has made it clear that I will not be settled on a specific style any time soon, especially considering the softwares I intend to become more proficient in by the end of the year. I feel like being able to use these will greatly change and influence my current style. I find this process extremely interesting too, therefore by doing a masters in Animation I can continue this process. Being around other students in this subject too is something that I find important to this process, since you are able to relate to where they are in regards to their own practice. Working with other students is an undoubtedly freer environment in comparison to working with industry professionals, this is a perception I have made from my own experiences.
The page for MA Animation at RCA discusses ‘innovative risk-taking’ which is what I refer to when I discuss the benefits of still being in education. You can be innovative too in a commercial environment of course, however, these risks are under more pressure to work out well. Problem-solving is a skill that I want to develop and researching this masters has shown me that this is something they greatly value in their teaching style to ‘deal creatively and sensitively with contemporary issues across a range of technologies and platforms’. Developing these critical tools, knowledge and confidence in an a place where I have tutor’s and points of contact for discussion and evaluation is important to me since it gives me confidence to step out of my comfort zone and experiment in a informative manner. Being a ‘game changer’ is where I want to be after university and the emphasis that this course places on that is the reason why I am considering it. Their Narrative Animation pathway which you choose on application focuses on ‘experimentation with forms of storytelling’, this is essentially what I am aiming to do with practice.
Looking at their alumi too is interesting, seeing their success and how the course must have informed their practice is so intriguing. Looking through their pages at what work they have done is inspirational, especially at a time where I am unsure of where my work will go next. Such as one of their old students Julia Pott.
MA Digital Direction – ‘Media and storytelling in the digital era’
As discussed, I am hanging between wanting to work solely on my animation and become a freelance animator but on the other hand go into a marketing company. This desire to be in the commercial world has been spurred on by recent things such as my GCS collaborative project. Working in this team was extremely informative in the ways of producing a concept and the process you need to go through in order to create something solid. Even though we were all new to the process, working through it and evaluating what we had done was an extremely useful learning curve. Since we were on our own but in the university environment it allowed us to make mistakes and learn from them.
The creative world is becoming increasingly digital based and therefore doing this masters incorporates so well with what I want to do. I want to develop an understanding of media production in a critical and experimental environment and I feel like this course would provide me with this opportunity. This programme develops skills in key areas such as; ‘production, direction, content development and digital media design.’. These are the things which I want to develop specifically, I have some levels of experience in these however nothing has been directly taught. Being taught in these areas would make me confident in my own abilities and like I am able to know what to do and how to do it, since I am already comfortable managing a team I simply need the specific theory and learning behind it. The programme will be able to supply me with these skills as well as helping evolve my own practice in going forward after university. Being around other like minded students will also provide me with a valuable network when we do leave and go our separate ways since the most valuable thing I have learnt from this year is working alongside people with different skillsets and interests to you is way more informative.