This course offers you the opportunity to choose your own route through the field of animation, studying either MA Animation or the bracketed specialism, Visual Effects. Animation is a discipline that adapts, challenges and leads the moving image industry. It is in the DNA that we all share since it can be applied equally to live action, games, XR, live performance, online, and any number of time-based media as well as being an important form in itself. Creating animation is a collaboration, and at the heart of this course we encourage students to develop a strong network through School and industry focussed links. Animation is not a mono-discipline but multi-faceted, and our bracketed animation specialism reflects the many ways that animation can be applied and examined. From science communication, to award winning short films, to mind-bending VFX, animation touches and transforms many areas. You will drive your creative projects in your chosen practice with staff who will guide and challenge you. Our postgraduate community is led by a specialist team of academic staff and visiting speakers who are practising artists, animators and researchers. They bring their passion and knowledge of the varied industries that animation feeds and share advice and expertise about how students will join them. The postgraduate student experience is designed to provide you with opportunities to hone your specialist technical skills, challenge your thinking, and make professional links with the global creative community and industry. **Features and Benefits** - You will join a course that fosters interesting and diverse engagement with external partners within Manchester, the region, nationally and internationally. - You will become an integral part of SODA - home to a creative community of research active staff with expertise in diverse fields of practice such as Animation, Filmmaking, Photography, Games Art, Immersive Arts and Sound Design. - You will have the space, guidance and technical resources to enable you to develop your independent practice, whilst taking advantage of the transdisciplinary activities provided by our offer of optional units and Co-Labs. - You will have the opportunity to extend and develop your experience in the professional sphere by being introduced to our close links with national and international educational partners, research communities and strong links with the creative and digital sectors across the UK. - By joining SODA at Manchester Met, you will become a part of the University’s dynamic research community within a city that is one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in Europe with a burgeoning arts scene and creative industries sector.