Bonnie Boglioli Randall

The University of Central Florida is a large, national research institution situated in the entertainment hub of Orlando. With a variety of compelling programs, courses, faculty and infrastructure for animation and visual effects students, UCF’s School of Visual Arts & Design (SVAD) is among the most well-rounded and well-respected of any state university in the country. Despite some 50,000 fellow UCF students, SVAD students are a tight-knit crew who work tirelessly to perfect modeling, animating, editing and more- often pulling long hours in the labs to finish projects or help fellow classmates.

Vancouver is home to the third largest film and TV production city in North America, earning it the nickname Hollywood North and attracting significant industry attention, professionals and (surprise, surprise) jobs. It’s little wonder that a healthy dose of animation programs have cropped up on the lush Pacific shores of Canada in the last few decades, but one in particular is tough to beat. Vancouver Film School offers three distinct animation programs that each draw wide industry praise while beckoning students from around the world.

National Film & Television School, known simply as ‘the School’, is a world leader in post-graduate film education and plays a rich role in the UK and abroad. NFTS’s calculated genesis began with a government recommendation to establish a national film school tailored to the goals of the country’s swinging film industry in the 1960’s. But history accounts for only a small fraction of what makes the School a venerable institution today. In the years since its inception, its distinguished faculty and alumni have garnered international praise for their work worldwide while students continue to collect a host of awards for their own work.

If you think that animators are only produced in costly art schools or a few venerable institutions that call Los Angeles or New York home, you haven’t been following what one Midwestern school is up to. It may seem unlikely that the land of corn and football harbors an exciting new media department, but it’s true. With Johnny Carson as one of its legendary alums and benefactors, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has a premier theater and film department smack in the middle of the country with a compelling animation and visual effects program virtually tailored to each student.