Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Dance

at Arts University Bournemouth United Kingdom

The engaging and creative course will be your stepping stone to an exciting career in making.

With access to the latest technology and traditional resources, you will learn to make things using an extensive array of materials, tools, and techniques. You will develop the making skills needed for rewarding careers in film, architecture, exhibition, and design. You will develop as an independent thinker, who is capable of solving problems, and taking imaginative leaps in creative design and making.

You will work on live collaborative projects with students from other courses and with industry professionals. Using our strong links with the creative industries, you will have opportunities to undertake work experience with leading companies in the UK and abroad.

Our graduates have progressed in their careers to run departments at Pinewood Studios, RSHP, Foster + Partners, Chalk Studios and Rusty Squid. This course has been the first step in the journeys of many successful graduates, leaders, and innovators. You will get the opportunity to work in our award-winning and purpose-built ‘CRAB’ Drawing Studio, which was designed by Professor Sir Peter Cook RA.
You will also work in Passiv Haus and our well-equipped Printmaking Studio.

MA Fine Art represents an exciting opportunity for students to challenge and build on their previous achievements and to study at an advanced level. Students deepen their knowledge and their ability to focus on their chosen field in relation to the key aspects that inform it.

Set within a community and culture of makers, students engage in dialogue and debate with their peers, both within and across MA pathways.

This experience provides dynamic and interactive sessions, which are vital to the enhancement and testing of new thinking and ideas generation as well as offering the broadest available critical arena for discussion of student work.

In our dynamic studio environments, you’ll learn to experiment, test and develop your illustration practice. You can explore drawing, painting, sewing and printmaking, as well as photographic, digital, moving image and interactive media.

Since the Harry Potter boom in the early 2000s, alongside a recent influx of new releases from studies, such as Disney and Marvel, the film and VFX industry has expanded at an exponential rate.

This has firmly established the UK as the leading country for high-quality Visual Effects work and created an unprecedented demand for fresh, highly-trained graduate talent from the UK education system. The course was created in response to an industry demand for visual effects artists who possess strong observational skills and the ability to apply them collaboratively in the workplace.

Designed from the ground up by industry professionals, specifically to address this demand, the primary ethos is to create the quality required for employability within the industry. Developing a foundation in traditional artistic techniques, such as drawing, colour theory, perspective, photography and composition, 125 you will learn what it takes to create your own feature film quality visual effects.

Our 2D workflow uses Nuke for all compositing, and Maya/Zbrush and Arnold for 3D, while our colour pipeline is based on an industry model with custom LUTs to ensure accurate monitoring of colour in our fully calibrated VFX labs. All of our VFX labs are equipped with top of the range industry-level workstations and are supported by our render farm, fibre network, and clustered storage. With smaller class sizes, students have full access to the VFX labs and workstations on specified lab days alongside a more personal, teaching approach. You will experience a team-based production process that replicates industry best practice; including previsualisation, concept development, on-set data acquisition, asset building, and compositing. We’ll introduce you to the underlying concepts and fundamental principles of Visual Effects work and teach you the necessary creative and technological disciplines, developing your knowledge of 2D and 3D software.

The course prides itself on the currency of its staff. You will be taught by industry professionals that between them have worked at studios, including ILM, Framestore, Double Negative, Electronic Arts, MPC, Image Engine, Weta Digital and many more. We have taken the knowledge gained at these studios and have brought it into the classroom. Having worked in the industry at the highest levels, we not only know what makes a strong artist, but also what the visual effects industry is looking for. We are focused on our graduates’ successful entry into the VFX industry, as well as them having a long and successful career.

The visual effects industry community is very close, much like a family where everyone knows each other. Through the personal connections of our industry experienced staff we are able to bring in top class guest speakers, such as Christian Manz, Creative Director, Film at Framestore and Sue Lyster, Director of Studio Operations, and ILM, to name a few recent guests.

Our BA (Hons) Acting course will appeal to you if you're passionate about pursuing a performance career. You’ll have plenty of professional and technical support and we encourage you to experiment and work collaboratively with other students on your own projects.

MA Photography course is a balance of art and commerce and is founded on the assertion that photography is a powerful form of communication that potentially connects with an audience of millions.

The course offers the opportunity to make professional work within, or crossing genres, whether it’s for publication, or the gallery. What defines it as professional, is that it is conceived and created with a specific audience in mind and is conscious of how meaning is affected by socio-political criteria.

The course is designed for ambitious photography graduates, or experienced photographers who wish to develop their knowledge and expertise in order to reach the very top of their field. We look for students with a passion for the subject and who are willing to take risks, and in doing so, push themselves to new heights.

You’ll graduate with both a breadth of understanding and context with a specialist focus and application in design. The design course builds on the established expertise within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, becoming a collaborative design link between disciplines just as in industry.

The design thinking, strategy and 2D communication aspects of the course link well with the Graphics and Visual Communications courses at AUB, reflecting current industry practice where the definition of the product is wider than a singular object. The 3D design, prototyping and realisation aspects complement the Modelmaking, Interiors, Architecture and Fashion courses.

Topics like design strategy, user-centred design and the commercialisation process familiar to Product Design could also be a design focus that feeds back out to other programmes through a collaborative curriculum, breaking conventional subject boundaries no longer recognised by the industry. As the course progresses through each level, you'll specialise the direction of your design focus, allowing you to join with existing units on other AUB courses.

MA Historical Costume engages you in the potential of performance design and garment construction to explore complex ideas; some of which could stray into other areas of artistic experimentation. Students may come to the course with a background in costume, fashion, textiles or theatre/performance design or you may have studied subjects from across the humanities including arts and performance.

This master’s program supports and encourages you to investigate individual practice within an interdisciplinary framework, whilst developing a critical theoretical context for your work. The very special and unique nature of course delivery, through shared lectures, seminars, critiques and tutorials encourages both a ‘freewheeling’ atmosphere as well as an intense immersion in creative practice.

Whether you are interested in looking at historical influences or current socio-political issues related to dress, you will challenge the context of your study in design or historical costume construction within the broader framework of contemporary practice.

On this course, you’ll gain practical skills and explore the thinking behind fashion branding and communication. You’ll create image and film, and develop visual identities using the latest creative software. We’ll also teach you the theory behind everything from creating a narrative for an image to building a global brand identity.

Great fashion communication comes about through collaboration. In AUB’s creative community, you’ll have the chance to do just that. You’ll be introduced to, and work with, students on other BA (Hons) courses, including Fashion, Commercial Photography, Textiles, Film Production and Make-up for Media and Performance, so the opportunities are limitless to apply your skills and collaborate.

According to the British Fashion Council, the UK Fashion Industry supports 797,000 jobs. With a degree from AUB, you will also make your own unique mark in this exciting space.

We’ve recently been awarded Gold by the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework).

Our teaching staff are exceptional. They're inspiring teachers, industry practitioners, technicians and researchers who are here to support you with your studies and help you to achieve outstanding outcomes.

Visual Communication combines skills in illustration, graphic design, typography and digital design to create images that persuade or inform.

From the start, the course focuses on hand-drawn imagery to develop a feel for the shapes and styles that connect with audiences. Practical experiences will be used to develop your skills. We’ll help you to build your visual awareness and understanding of the world around you. In addition to plenty of theory and debate, you’ll have the chance to work on live briefs with other students and find work placements in creative businesses.

Visual Communication underlines the importance of good ideas. You’ll leave with all the practical skills that you need to work in a vibrant and exciting industry. Our graduates work as freelancers in small design companies and with larger firms, both locally and internationally.