Our three-year graduate program attracts advanced students seeking to further their animation knowledge and refine their production and motion design skills. Students are encouraged to explore a diverse array of techniques and tools in both theory and practice in preparation for their thesis film or project. We invite top tier guest lecturers to many of our classes to inspire our students and open doors to trajectories and pathways beyond their USC education.

Students 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. We highly encourage our majors to take advantage of the entire catalog of classes at USC during their time here.

MFA Curriculum

Year 1

Introduction to 3D Computer Animation
Design Fundamentals for Animation
Studio Careers: Story to Screen
Animation: The Art and the Industry
Fundamentals of 2D Animation
Animation Production I
Fundamentals of Storytelling for Animation
Cinematic Ethics
Fundamentals of 3D Animation

Year 2

Animation Design and Production
Animation Storyboarding Practicum
Animation Pre-Thesis Seminar
The Business of Animation
Cinematic Storytelling for Animators

Year 3

Master's Thesis

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 professionals from the animation industry and independent media production.

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

For more information go to the USC Academic Catalog