This course offers an in-depth exploration of 3D/Visual Effects [VFX] as a mode of critical inquiry an early stage of the student’s academic program. Students will be introduced to the genre of 3D and VFX in the context of digital aesthetics, narrative structures and contemporary research practices. Through practical experiments, students will interrogate our unprecedented ability to digitally replicate and represent our physical world through 3D imaging and digital visualisation. Students will explore the role of technology in enabling a new way of seeing, thinking and generating meaning. They will examine aesthetic approaches to screen-based digital narrative structures, ranging from documentary animation to medical visualisation as examples of this process.

By the end of this course, students will gain a practical understanding of 3D/VFX as a mode of critical enquiry through experimentations with linear and non-linear narrative projects that are underpinned by a theoretical framework. Students will gain critical skills that enable them to interrogate their practice in an academic context.

The course will consist of 3-hour weekly seminars combined with a series of practical tasks including the development of traditional and experimental digital narratives. Students will be engaged in an immersive learning environment including extended laboratory access, regular group seminars and an online learning community.

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