Studios and workshops

We have well-equipped, dedicated studios with everything you'll need to support your work. We also provide great workshops and the latest equipment to enhance your learning experience.

We have recently expanded and upgraded our 3D workshops, enabling you to work alongside and be inspired by students from other creative disciplines, and spent considerable sums improving our moving image department (premier filming space, post-production suite and animation suite). Our specialist support and technical staff will help you get the most from our facilities and there are introductory sessions, giving you the skills you need to use them.

3D materials workshop

Our large, open-access 3D materials workshop has been the focus of significant investment during the past year, and now features state-of-the-art equipment and an interdisciplinary construction area. The workshop enables you to work with a broad range of materials including wood, metal, stone, plastic, plaster, bio-resins, wax and ceramics. You will explore traditional methods of making, such as woodwork and metalwork, before progressing onto using the latest computer-aided 2D and 3D modelling equipment and programmes.

Moving image workshop

Our filming environment and animation suite house the latest technology, including:

• 100m sq filming space with 14m infinity cove and 8m professional film blue screen;
• three Panasonic HVX200 hi-definition cameras;
• Kino Flow lighting system controlled by a 64-channel DMX desk;
• Stanton Jimi Jib with a remote head and 4m reach;
• a post-production suite containing 10 Macintosh computers with 20 terabytes of storage hosting the latest editing software;
• an animation suite containing four rostrum cameras running professional stop motion capture systems as used by Aardman Animation (the Oscar-winning makers of Wallace and Gromit);
• Diva light setup by Kino Flow, light boxes and additional animator-friendly equipment; and
• a sound recording suite, perfect for interviews, voice overs and recording music.

Photography workshop

Our professional-level photography suite has:

• two new digital darkrooms featuring high-end workstations with calibrated monitors;
• quality input and output devices within a colour-managed workflow ensuring colour accuracy; and
• hardware including Mac Pro computers, Nec Spectraview monitors, Imacon and Nikon film scanners, A3 Epson Pro Flatbed scanners, digital card readers and Epson large format printers.

Digital media workshops

We have two newly specified open-access digital media workshop which are home to 132 iMac workstations, providing facilities for:

• 2D and 3D design;
• audio and video production; and
• small and large format printing.

Each workstation runs Windows 7 and Macintosh OS X Lion, offering the latest design software including Adobe CS6 Masters Suite and video editing software Adobe Premiere and Avid.

Printmaking studio

The printmaking workshop accommodates several distinctive areas:

• intaglio (etching, drypoint and photo-etching); relief (woodcut, linocut, collagraph, monoprint and embossing);
• screenprint;
• offset (autographic and photographic);
• cyanotypes; and
• an editing suite.