Selection for Filmmaking, Animation and Photography courses

Welcome

Select your course above to find out everything you need to know to develop your digital portfolio and prepare for your interview, watch a short video about what we’re looking for and view the facilities section to immerse yourself in our creative spaces. 

 

BA Animation

Digital portfolio

Applicants are required to submit a digital portfolio for review. Your portfolio should be a selection of your work that reflects the range of your abilities, your creative process (including your developmental work), and your interest in the course. Decisions will be made primarily on the basis of the work and the ideas that you present in your portfolio.

You can send us a link to your website on a platform such as Wix, or a link to documents hosted on platforms such as Google Docs, Google Drive or Dropbox, but if you have a portfolio in another format that is fine to use too.

Please take a look at our technical guidance for the suggested platforms to ensure you are sharing your portfolio with us successfully:

For Animation, we would like you to include the following in your portfolio. 

  • Animation (animation is desirable, but not essential): Gifs*, short films*, show reel*
  • Drawing from imagination: original designs and characters (maximum 10)
  • Drawing from life: figure and animal drawings, spaces, places and objects (maximum 10)
  • Scanned sketchbook pages: choose a selection from your sketchbooks that show a variety of your design development and thought process (maximum 10)
  • Evidence of design for screen: storyboards, set, layout*, character sets*, thumbnail boards*
  • Model making: digital 3D*, physical 3D*, sculptures*
  • Support material: include work that adds value to your application, comics and zines, collaborations and performance, music, self-motivated work, Instagram, YouTube/Vimeo. You can add short written description of these projects and mention your involvement (max 30 words each).

We are looking for a collection of work that is lively, colourful, original, and represents you and your artistic development and supports your desire to study animation. We are aware that copying existing intellectual property (IP) is popular, but we do not wish to see too much derivative and fan art in these portfolios.

*We recognise you may not have work for all of the above.

Portfolio task

Please also include a short written text (no more than one side A4) answering the following questions:

  • Why do you want to study Animation?
  • Why have you chosen UWE Bristol as a place to undertake your studies in Animation?
  • What are your ambitions and career aspirations?
  • In your opinion, what ingredients are necessary for a good story, and why? (You may choose an example).

Interview

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an online interview, on Microsoft Teams. The following will help you prepare:

Your Animation interview will be conducted by two members of the Animation staff team or a staff member and one of the current Animation students. The interviews are normally around 20 minutes long, during which time you will be invited to show us examples of your work and discuss aspects of your portfolio along with your UCAS personal statement. 

We will explore your decision to pursue a career in Animation and the reasons you would like to study Animation at UWE Bristol. You will have plenty of time to ask us any questions you may have about the course and what it’s like to study in Bristol. 

We may ask you during the interview to discuss some of your answers from the portfolio task (above) as well as your broader interests in Art, Media and Animation. 

It would be useful to become familiar with the structure of the Animation programme prior to the interview. Relevant information is available on the Animation course page. You can also see some animation student work and news on the Bristol School of Animation site.

 

Digital portfolio and interview guidance: Animation

Watch our short advice video for guidance on what to include in your Animation digital portfolio.

BA Animation with Foundation Year

Digital portfolio

Applicants are required to submit a digital portfolio for review. Your portfolio should be a selection of your work that reflects the range of your abilities, your creative process (including your developmental work), and your interest in the course. Decisions will be made primarily on the basis of the work and the ideas that you present in your portfolio.

You can send us a link to your website on a platform such as Wix, or a link to documents hosted on platforms such as Google Docs, Google Drive or Dropbox, but if you have a portfolio in another format that is fine to use too.

Please take a look at our technical guidance for the suggested platforms to ensure you are sharing your portfolio with us successfully:

For Animation with Foundation Year, we would like you to include the following in your portfolio:

  • Animation (animation is desirable, but not essential): Gifs*, short films*, show reel*
  • Drawing from imagination: original designs and characters (maximum 10)
  • Drawing from life: figure and animal drawings, spaces, places and objects (maximum 10)
  • Scanned sketchbook pages: choose a selection from your sketchbooks that show a variety of your design development and thought process (maximum 10)
  • Evidence of design for screen: storyboards, set, layout*, character sets*, thumbnail boards*
  • Model making: digital 3D*, physical 3D*, sculptures*
  • Support material: include work that adds value to your application, comics and zines, collaborations and performance, music, self-motivated work, Instagram, YouTube/Vimeo. You can add short written descriptions of these projects and mention your involvement (max 30 words each).

We are looking for a collection of work that is lively, colourful, original, and represents you and your artistic development and supports your desire to study animation.

*We recognise you may not have work for all of the above.

BA Filmmaking

Digital portfolio

Applicants are required to submit a digital portfolio for review. Your portfolio should be a selection of your work that reflects the range of your abilities, your creative process (including your developmental work), and your interest in the course.

Decisions will be made primarily on the basis of the work and the ideas that you present in your portfolio. We may invite you for an interview if we have questions about your portfolio or think further discussion may be useful.

Our preferred platforms are Wix websites, Instagram/TikTok feeds or documents with links hosted on file-sharing sites such as Google Docs, Google Drive or Dropbox, but if you have a portfolio in another format that is fine to use too.

Please take a look at our technical guidance for the suggested platforms to ensure you are sharing your portfolio with us successfully: 

We recommend you curate a concise portfolio, between 5–10 examples. 

  • While some of our applicants will have had some experience in filmmaking, others will not. It is okay for you to include examples of films, creative writing, record sound, photographs, scripts, graphic design work, and/ or artwork, etc – anything that you think will give us some idea of what makes you tick creatively.
  • You can also include works in progress and/or examples of your creative process, such as research ideas, edit notes, sketchbooks and/or storyboards, etc.  
  • If you’re heavily influenced by a certain artist or draw your ideas from your environment, let us know. If you want to take a message to your audience or you're drawn to working in a particular genre, tell us all about it. You will not be judged on the production standards of your work, but rather we will be looking to see what excites you about making film!
  • More than anything we want you to demonstrate to us who you are and why you want to come to UWE Bristol. 
  • Be sure to caption your work so that we’re clear about its context and your role in its creation.

Portfolio task:

  • Share your story! Make a short video (up to 90 seconds) about what influences you and why you want to study Filmmaking at UWE Bristol. Interpret this as you wish!
  • Send us a 100 word pitch for both a fiction film and for a documentary that you would like to potentially make on the course. They should be your original ideas making reference to other films, TV or online projects you have seen and been influenced by. 

BA Photography

Digital portfolio

Applicants are required to submit a digital portfolio for review. Your portfolio should be a selection of your work that reflects the range of your abilities, your creative process (including your developmental work), and your interest in photography. Decisions will be made primarily on the basis of the work and the ideas that you present in your portfolio and during the subsequent interview.

Our preferred formats are Flickr and Wix, or documents hosted on a platform such as Google Docs, Google Drive or Dropbox.

Please take a look at our technical guidance for the suggested platforms to ensure you are sharing your portfolio with us successfully:

For Photography, we would like you to include the following in your portfolio.

  • The portfolio should include supporting work (sketchbook work, developmental work etc). If you have not produced this online, please try to scan some examples so that we can see how your underpinning research develops and informs your finished imagery.
  • We do not expect to see all your work but rather a sample that you believe represents your best work (25–40 images) and best supporting work (this may mean scanning pages from your sketchbooks as well as scanning your work where you feel it may be necessary).
  • We are particularly interested to see images in short sequences, to give us an impression of how you resolve particular project ideas. That doesn’t mean to say that you can’t include single images in your portfolio. You should, however, avoid trying to demonstrate that you are a 'jack of all trades' by including every possible type of imagery.
  • You should include at least one recent essay or short piece of writing so that we are able to see how you develop and articulate your ideas through written work.

Portfolio task: short project brief 

We’d also like you to include your response to a brief in your digital portfolio. We are interested in how you approach the task. Your solutions can be fun as well as serious.

Produce 4 to 5 images on the theme of ‘Strangely Familiar’. These photographs should be displayed at the start of your online portfolio. Please provide a short written text (no more than one side A4) outlining your approach to the brief.

Interview

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an online interview session on Microsoft Teams. The following will help you prepare:

To begin with, the programme leader will give a brief talk about the course and take any general questions.

After this the group will be split for the following activities:

  • Your BA(Hons) Photography interview
  • Student Ambassador live Q&A with a current student who will introduce you to the programme from the students’ perspective
  • Online technical demonstration from one of our Technical Instructors
  • Highlights of the course from our Programme Support Assistant, including graduate successes, shows/exhibitions, field trips etc.

The session will last approximately two and a half hours. You should expect your individual interview to last for around 20 minutes.

In the interim, you might want to take a look at the online tour of the extensive Photography Department facilities at the Bower Ashton campus as well as an example of a practical demonstration workshop with one of our Technical Instructors.

You will have submitted your digital portfolio of imagery before the interview, which should include the short project brief described above. A good way to prepare for your interview would be to carefully look through your uploaded images and think in each case about the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind them. Also consider the kind of sources that have inspired your photography.

It would also be useful to become familiar with the structure of the Photography programme prior to the interview. Relevant information is available on the Photography course page.

Digital portfolio and interview guidance: Photography

Watch our short advice video for guidance on what to include in your digital portfolio.

BA Photography with Foundation Year

Digital portfolio

Applicants are required to submit a digital portfolio for review. Your portfolio should be a selection of your work that reflects the range of your abilities, your creative process (including your developmental work), and your interest in the course. Decisions will be made primarily on the basis of the work and the ideas that you present in your portfolio.

Our preferred formats are Flickr and Wix, or documents hosted on a platform such as Google Docs, Google Drive or Dropbox.

Please take a look at our technical guidance for the suggested platforms to ensure you are sharing your portfolio with us successfully:

For Photography with Foundation Year, we would like you to include the following in your portfolio:

  • The portfolio should include supporting work (sketchbook work, developmental work etc). If you have not produced this online, please try to scan some examples so that we can see how your underpinning research develops and informs your finished imagery.
  • We do not expect to see all your work but rather a sample that you believe represents your best work (up to 25 images) and best supporting work (this may mean scanning pages from your sketchbooks as well as scanning your work where you feel it may be necessary).
  • We are particularly interested to see images in short sequences, to give us an impression of how you resolve particular project ideas. That doesn’t mean to say that you can’t include single images in your portfolio. You should, however, avoid trying to demonstrate that you are a 'jack of all trades' by including every possible type of imagery.
  • You should include at least one recent essay or short piece of writing so that we are able to see how you develop and articulate your ideas through written work.

Facilities

Immerse yourself in our Filmmaking, Animation and Photography facilities by viewing our 360° images. Move between different rooms and spaces by using the arrows or menu bar on the top left, and use the controls or your cursor to explore the images. You can also expand to full screen using the icon on the bottom left of the images.