Student review [#20356] for Digital Effects
at Bournemouth University - BU

If you plan a career in the movie industry as an fx artist/td this course is definitely for you but if you have no or little experience in 3D be prepared for a busy year as it’s really packed. However, teachers will help you as much as you will need it and their knowledge is very impressive. I need to highlight Phil Spicer who is the master of Houdini and he and other teachers were helping us even on Saturdays putting a lot of heart into our projects. If you are ambitious and want to succeed in VFX industry that is a good starting point. One small minus could be the fact that some international teachers were sometimes hard to understand.

The big plus of this Uni is the facilities especially with the fresh-new media building (Poole Gateway building) which contains huge computer labs, on-site green screen studio and a kit room which lets you to borrow very good quality equipment for the projects filmed outside. We used varicam camera as the main tool for shooting moving sequences and canons for backplates/HDRs.

A huge advantage were the every week meetings with people from the industry (big companies like ILM, Framestore, Dneg just named a few). I could take part in sessions and ask my questions directly to them. There was also a running animation society which helped to connect with students from similar courses (not only master ones).

The course itself is highly international and I had the opportunity to work not only with native British but also people from the whole Europe and world (in a class of 40, there were only a few British). Amazing opportunity to listen to different languages, get to know new cultures and make friends with people around the world. It also gave me a chance to see how my style of work differs from people who comes from different backgrounds.

What I liked the most about BU was definitely the location. Bournemouth is a cute little town located on the South-West coast of England and the beach is extremely long and beautiful. You and your coursemates can enjoy it almost any time during the year as winter is very mild in this area. We used to go to the beach even in December. What was great about Bournemouth is that it is one of the sunniest places in England (it is also in statistics!). Bournemouth uni is divided into two campuses (and MA Digital Effects runs on the Talbot campus which is the one outside the town) but the good communication and many uni buses help you to get to the centre in around 20mins and enjoy the beach and nightlife over there.