Animation and Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts nurtures the next generation of film and content makers who chose animation as their medium. The program offers a well-rounded creative learning environment to hone your animation skills and explore a multitude of options including 2D and 3D character animation, motion graphics, visual development, story development and immersive media.

Students will have opportunities to collaborate across the School of Cinematic Arts divisions as well as work in partnerships with other USC students from the Thornton School of Music, the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, the School of Dramatic Arts, the Viterbi School of Engineering and the School of Architecture to name a few. In fact, we encourage our majors to take advantage of the entire catalog of classes at USC during their time here.

The program gives students the opportunity to choose their own artistic path whether it is to become a professional or independent artist. Our students’ work has been recognized by the Academy and countless animation film festivals. Many of our graduates have gone on to work at feature and TV animation studios, motion graphics studios and other top creative content companies.

BFA Curriculum

Year 1

Introduction to the Art of Animation Design Fundamentals / Still Image Intro to 3D animation History of Animation

Year 2

Design Fundamentals / Moving Image Writing for Animation Storyboarding for Animation Introduction to Character Animation

Year 3

Intermediate Character Performance Cinematography for Animation Professionalism in Animation Ideation + Pre-Produciton

Year 4

Senior Capstone Film / Project Internship in Cinematic Arts

Animation Electives

Students can take a variety of elective and master classes that focus on skill building and different areas of animation creation. Our faculty are accomplished digital and traditional artists and professional from the animation industry and independent media production.

Concept Design for Animation Cinematography for Animators 3D Animation for Motion Graphics (C4D) Organic Modeling for Animation Character Design Workshop Creative Production in Virtual Reality Motion Capture Fundamentals 2D Motion Graphics 3D Motion Graphics Visual Music Real Time Animation (Unreal Engine) Visual Effects Digital Lighting and Rendering Projection Mapping Design and Production Advanced Character Animation for Games Pipeline and Character Modeling for Animation Procedural Animation (Houdini) Production Design for Animation Experiments in Immersive Design The World of Visual Effects Digital Effects Animation Live Action Integration with Visual Effects