Tisch Asia to Offer New M.F.A. Degrees in Animation/Digital Arts and Dramatic Writing

By Richard Pierce

    The Tisch School of the Arts Asia will begin offering two new graduate degrees—one in animation and digital arts and one in dramatic writing—at its new campus in Singapore in fall 2008.

      Students enrolled in the animation and digital arts program will be immersed in a unique creative environment that teaches the traditional forms of the art of animation and explores an array of advanced techniques and digital technologies. From capturing the motion of a dancer to animating facial expressions following a human voice, students explore ways to re-create motion and to create relationships through storytelling. At the end of the two-year program, students earn a Master of Fine Arts in animation and digital arts.

      “Students will focus on peoplegestures, postures, style and expressions and ways to animate a puppet, a digital character, or even a robotic device,” said Jean-Marc Gauthier, animation and digital arts faculty member. “They will explore new forms of storytelling using real time and interactive technologies.”

      The Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) program in dramatic writing is a two-year sequence of full-time study with concentrations in playwriting, screenwriting, or television writing for students with proven writing ability and a record of academic excellence.

      At the beginning of the program, students enroll in the Division of Playwriting and also in the Division of Film and Television Writing. As their studies advance, students select one medium for concentration, and graduate seminars in theatre and film require students to write an original 10-minute play, one-act play, full-length play, and full-length screenplay. Individual workshops give students the opportunity to try out ideas and assess their suitability for writing for television, film, or theatre.

       “The future writers for theatre, film, and television in these countries will provide the chronicles, new myths, and legends that will tell the stories of these emerging giants traversing the stage of world events,” said Richard Wesley, chair of both the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at the Tisch School and the Graduate Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch Asia. “To be sure, this new world will need its own generation of young writers who can speak a different kind of  language—dynamic, dramatic, original, and knowledgeable of the traditions of the past but always pointing to the horizons ahead.  We think Tisch Asia is the place for these aspiring artists to begin their graduate training.”

      Tisch Asia opened in Singapore this fall, inducting its first class of M.F.A. film production candidates. Located on a three-acre campus in the central region of Singapore, the 40,000-square-foot educational center was completely renovated in 2007 to feature sound stages, an animation studio, writing center, two raked 50-seat theatres capable of 35mm and video projection, computer workstations, editing labs, and a script and film library.

      The application deadline for both M.F.A. programs is Jan. 8. For more detailed information, and to apply online, visit: www.tischasia.nyu. edusg.