MFA Acting with Digital Media

East 15 Acting School's MFA Acting with Digital Media is a unique industry-focused, conservatoire-style professional training programme, designed specifically for international students. The course combines a year of rigorous training in acting process, theatre performance, vocal techniques and movement skills, with a second year specialising in acting for Digital Media.

The first year emphasises the integration and mastery of a wide spectrum of core acting skills. This includes acting classes, Laban, Feldenkrais, Somatic and Grotowski based movement classes, voice production, articulation, RP (Received Pronunciation), and singing. Additionally, you'll have the option to take extra Stage Combat classes in the evenings.

The second year focuses on learning and applying the technical craft and skills required for working as an actor in all areas of digital media, incvluding Acting for Camera, Voiceover and Recorded Voice, and Motion Capture. Over the course of the year, you'll take six bespoke modules covering screen acting, recorded voice, motion capture, movement, and industry preparation.

You will receive individual feedback, guidance, and support from your acting and skills tutors throughout the programme.

On the MFA Acting with Digital Media, you'll have opportunities to:

• Undertake a six-week intensive study of Shakespeare, including a three-week residency at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Your residency culminates in a performance on the Globe stage to an invited public audience.
• Develop your acting process in the first year, learning physical and vocal skills and techniques. Our unique and rigorous approach to acting training includes the use of detailed research, targeted improvisation, and their direct application to text, character creation, and scene work.
• Performing in a professionally-supported public theatre production at our Corbett Theatre. This show will be promoted to UK industry.
• Stage a studio-scale performance of a collaboratively Devised show at the School, performed to an invited public audience.
• Shift your focus in the second year to digital media, with dedicated training in Acting for Camera, Voiceover and Recorded Voice, and Motion Capture. You'll take advanced modules in voice and movement to develop industry-relevant skills.
• Train in our state-of-the-art facilities, including a VICON motion capture volume, dedicated voice booth, and film studio.
• Work alongside industry experts in their fields of expertise, including guest professionals from the screen, motion capture, and gaming industries.
• Graduate with professional-quality screen acting showreels, voice reels, and performance capture reels. These are released to the School's wide base of industry contacts through a Digital Showcase, which can also be promoted to international industry professionals.

You'll work with highly experienced professional practitioners and directors alongside an international cohort of actors from all over the world. This rich mix of diverse cultural backgrounds, historical perspectives, life experiences, and trainings will enlighten, challenge, educate and inform you, both as an artist and as a human being.

We regard every actor as unique, recognising the need for different keys to unlock your capabilities as artists and individuals. By the time you graduate, you'll be a self-sufficient actor, in charge of your own process, and able to work confidently with any director, in any genre or discipline.

In your first year, MFA Acting with Digital Media students are combined for most modules with the MA Acting (International) students for most modules, working in three groups of 14 to 16 students. The composition of these groups changes after each module in response to your individual needs and future journey as an actor. This flexible structure allows you greater choice in selecting texts, projects, tutors, and directors for your modules, supporting personalised development.

The first year of the course is taught at our picturesque Loughton Campus.

The second year is taught at our Southend Campus, where our Motion Capture studio and dedicated voice booth are situated. In the second year, you'll be part of an exclusive cohort of 12 to 14 MFA Acting with Digital Media students.

Our expert staff

Our training is by international professionals for professionals from all areas of live and recorded performance, allowing our graduates to work successfully across the globe. Learn more about our staff here.

Specialist facilities

Year 1

Our Loughton Campus is perfectly located, providing access to both the rich, cultural diversity of London and an attractive and peaceful setting in which to study.

We are just a five-minute walk from London Underground station, Debden, where you can travel in only thirty minutes to Central London, West End theatres and mainline train stations including the Eurostar.

We have three sites at our Loughton Campus – Hatfields, Roding House and Unit Four. Hatfields is a beautiful Georgian dower house, set in five acres of lawns with orchards, flowerbeds and a small lake, providing an idyllic atmosphere for study, relaxation and performance.

Just a short walk from Hatfields is Roding House, a £1.3 million facility containing 10 rehearsal rooms, a green room/café, a sound recording studio and a video editing suite, and our costume department.

Next to Roding House, Unit Four is a £1.5 million facility which is home to the Stage & Production Management department. The Unit contains a large workshop, paint shop, prop shop, prop storage facilities and teaching spaces.

Our on-site Corbett Theatre is named in honour of Harry H Corbett, a key member of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and early benefactor of East 15. It is used extensively for student productions and is a practical training hub for our BA Stage and Production Management students.

The building is a medieval tithe barn that was dismantled and transported to Hatfields in the 1960s. These unusual origins create a unique performance space with a special atmosphere. Renovated to include full technical facilities, tiered seating for 130 people and fitted dressing rooms, the theatre provides an excellent resource for public productions, while the adjacent Bar and Café provides a social meeting point for students and staff.

Year 2

In your second year, you'll train at our Southend campus.

The practical training gives you the opportunity to work with the technology that is appropriate for the given performance. For motion capture, you will train in our new VICON motion capture volume, specifically designed for this programme. When working on voice acting you'll work in studios and a voice booth, with the relevant technology for a variety of disciplines such as voice over, radio drama and voicing animation. In acting for film, you will take part in projects that are filmed both on-site and on location.

Southend Central railway station is opposite our Campus and the journey to central London takes less than an hour. Southend Airport, with flights to many European and UK destinations is just three miles away. We are also just one hour away from London's Stansted Airport. Our Gateway Building houses a purpose-built suite specifically for East 15 students. This includes fully equipped, state-of-the art rehearsal studios with panoramic views across Southend-on-Sea, plus our motion capture volume, seminar rooms, computer labs and media production resources including an Apple Mac editing suite.

A magnificent Victorian former church in the heart of Southend's conservation area was converted into East 15's Clifftown Theatre. It also houses a variety of unique spaces for rehearsals, technical and practical work and performances. The church nave, with its original organ and stained glass windows now provides an inspirational and atmospheric environment, re-designed to accommodate the needs of a twenty-first century performance space.

In ‘The Forum' building, students have round the clock, secure access to the Learning Hub, which provides innovative IT and study spaces. The Forum also houses an integrated public and academic library, carrying books and other support materials. Students in Southend also have access to the East 15 Loughton Campus library and the University's Colchester Campus library.

Outside of learning, the Students' Union at our Southend Campus provides a dedicated space for students to meet, have a coffee, relax and watch films or sport.

Your future

Graduates of this course will have comprehensive training and a clear, embedded process that will enable them to pursue professional careers in theatre and digital media in an increasingly global industry.

Our master's graduates are working and winning awards as actors in the USA, China, Norway, South Korea, and many other countries. MFA graduates have also gone on to teaching careers at Universities in North America, South Korea, and around the world.

“The cross-pollination of ideas and cultures brought together in the faculty and students in this course provides a valuable springboard in creating extraordinary theatre.”

-Earl Kim, MFA Acting (International)

UK entry requirements

Our applicants need to undertake a successful audition or video audition, plus have a first degree with an overall 2.2, or equivalent or suitable life and/or professional expertise.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, we require IELTS 6.0 overall with a minimum component score of 5.5

If you do not meet our IELTS requirements then you may be able to complete a pre-sessional English pathway that enables you to start your course without retaking IELTS.

Additional Notes

The University uses academic selection criteria to determine an applicant’s ability to successfully complete a course at the University of Essex. Where appropriate, we may ask for specific information relating to previous modules studied or work experience.

Course structure

At East 15, our training draws upon over 60 years of tradition combined with a keen sense of the world of stage and screen today. Our carefully selected modules will give you the chance to explore and develop your specialist training.

In your first year, you'll spend around half your time in a typical week in Acting classes, and the other half in Voice, Articulation, Movement, and Singing classes. Our advanced acting training draws on contemporary industry practice, the legacy of Stanislavski, and the unique methodologies and ethos of East 15 itself, which grew out of the techniques, beliefs, and practice of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop - one of the UK's most famous and historically influential theatre companies of the 20th Century.

The second year of the MFA focuses on digital media and is taught across the year in 6 modules focusing on acting for screen, recorded voice, movement in the volume (mo-cap), movement, Industry Preparation. The final module is a Portfolio assignment and is completed after the teaching on the course has ended.

We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision for you. We'll make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the courses, services, and facilities as described on our website and in line with your contract with us. However, if we need to make material changes, for example due to significant disruption, we'll let our applicants and students know as soon as possible.

Teaching

Year 1: Acting process, skills, and technique

Term 1

Character and Scene Study

In the first term, you'll focus on acting techniques evolved from the Stanislavski tradition, using extensive improvisational exercises to explore East 15's core approach to actor training. This enables students from diverse traditions and approaches to establish a shared language and process in preparation for subsequent training.

The focus then shifts to applying what you have learned in the initial improvised exercises to text. Through our intensive, detailed approach to text analysis, research, and targeted improvisation, you'll enhance your ability to bring characters and situations to life. You'll also deepen your process in the rehearsal and performance of naturalistic scenes. This module utilises naturalistic scripts: from Chekhov and Ibsen to Hansberry and Rattigan.

The first term ends with a collaboration with our MA and MFA Theatre Directing students, leading to an internal performance in one of our studios.

Term 2

Contemporary Text

In this module, each group works with a director to devise an entirely new show in response to a text, novel or article. These studio-scale shows are performed to an invited public audience at the School.

Shakespeare and the Shakespeare’s Globe Residency

This module starts with three weeks of workshops and masterclasses designed to deepen your understanding of Shakespeare's text: its meaning and mechanics. You'll explore analytical and experimental approaches to develop clarity and accuracy while inhabiting the text truthfully. You'll also take part in masterclasses delivered by professionals with extensive experience at the RSC, National Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

The second half of this module is a three-week residency at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. During this time, you'll work with the Globe's own directors and experts in text, movement, voice and dance, rehearsing and performing 50-minute versions of Shakespearean texts on the Globe stage for an invited public audience.

Term 3

Public Productions

Your first fully public show will be one of three full-length plays, staged in the Corbett Theatre at East 15. These productions are directed by established professional directors and fully supported by professional set, costume, lighting and sound designers. This experience allows you to create at least one complete role in a public production promoted to Industry. MFA Acting (International) first-year students mostly take on supporting roles in these productions.

Year 2: focus on Acting for Digital Media

Movement in the Volume (Mo-Cap)

You'll work in our fully resourced 30-camera VICON motion capture volume, specifically designed for this programme and supported by a full-time dedicated technician. This module covers the fundamental techniques for performing in a virtual environment, along with an understanding of the technology that captures your performance in the volume and transforms it into a digital character. You will start by learning the basics of a motion capture shoot, including terminology and technology, building character physicality, working within imaginary environments, and understanding the rules of the space.

As your training progresses, you'll explore

• How to prepare for a role
• Introduction to Video Game locomotion
• Basic scene work
• Working with objects
• Collaborating with a performance director
• Working from a script
• How to adapt your performance for different virtual environments and requirements

By term 2 you will progress to Full-Performance Capture, advanced scene work and Locomotion. Term 3 will be focused on developing, rehearsing and filming your Mo-Cap Showreels.

Screen Acting

In Term 1, you'll learn the fundamentals of acting for camera, including how it differs from stage acting. You'll learn acting techniques such as Meisner, script analysis, and other relevant methods, and apply them to screen roles. You'll also shoot scenes on camera in a workshop setting and receive training in filming and editing digital footage.

In Term 2, you'll begin shooting scenes for your showreel, refining your on-camera technique by working with directors on scenes which will be edited. Additionally, you'll have the opportunity to write and film original work.

In Term 3, you'll complete a final screen project with an external professional director. This project will be edited and showcased as part of your final digital portfolio.

Recorded Voice

This module will focus on how to make the best use of your voice for digital capture. Teaching will happen both in a general studio setting as well as in our on-site, professional standard voice booth. You will learn about basic and advanced microphone technique and focus on specific performance outputs which are the mainstays for voiceover artists. Tailored instruction throughout the year will focus on narration, character voices for animation and games, auditions/castings and radio plays, and will require you to apply a range of accents in your work. You will also be introduced to basic recording software and audio editing. Alongside the skills covered in this unit, your technical skills in this area will be developed in the industry preparation sessions.

Movement

Movement is a core part of any actor’s work, and this programme draws on East 15’s strong tradition in training actors through various styles of movement training. Training takes place in our studios and helps to develop the actor’s craft in ensuring full embodiment of character that translates effectively across all forms of digital performance.

Continuing your training from Year 1, you'll study Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, consent-based practice, Viewpoints, improvisation, animal work, somatic practice modalities including Feldenkrais and experiential anatomy. You also receive dedicated core movement training around military, combat and weapons work throughout the year.

Industry Preparation

The learning across the year in Industry Preparation will aid you in making the transition into working professionally as an independent artist. You will be guided in how to use footage captured during the course to create a showreel and a voice reel. You'll also learn strategies for marketing and presentation (both in person and in writing), audition techniques for film, motion capture and voiceover work, as well as advice on self-tapes. You will also receive tuition about important aspects in home recording and creating a home studio.

You'll participate in masterclasses and information sessions with working industry artists from acting, film voiceover, gaming and mo-cap. These supplement your core learning with additional skills, as well as shedding a light on industry practices and the realities of working in related fields. Workshop sessions will be led by both the faculty team and by visiting professionals in areas related to the core modules of training.

Online Digital Media Showcase

On completing the course, you will have an online digital media showcase featurng your screen acting and mo-cap showreels and a voiceover demo reel. This showcase is sent out to leading agents and casting directors across the UK industry.