Stir emotion through art with a career in visual storytelling.

In this one-year Visual Development for Entertainment Ontario College Graduate Certificate, you refine your artistic skills for a specialized career in the entertainment industry. As a visual development or concept artist, you take creative ideas and generate visual designs for a wide range of media products. This includes, but is not limited to, creating characters, prop designs, and environments that help tell the story of a film, show or video game. Building on your existing artistic knowledge, skills, and experience, you integrate current and emerging technologies and tools to enhance 2D and 3D entertainment industry outcomes. You develop project management, teamwork, visual research, and rapid visualization skills to refine and move concepts through industry-specific pre-production pipelines.

You apply your knowledge of cinematography to treat your art like a movie set creating believable concepts to augment the viewer experience. You enhance your artistic skills to evoke emotion through visual storytelling.

Develop problem-solving skills through art and design. You build leadership skills to produce, guide and manage studio-ready artwork for the film and entertainment industry. Working with industry experts through the conceptual process in a studio environment, you apply industry-standard technologies and techniques such as:

• visual development
• concept art
• digital drawing, painting and 3D modelling
• texture work
• matte painting
• motion capture art
• traditional and digital sculpting
• mixed media
• storyboarding

Throughout the program, you practise presenting, defending, validating, and adjusting your creative pitch to communicate solutions and sell your ideas. Each course contributes to the development of an industry portfolio that showcases your abilities to augment, refine, and deliver evidence-informed visual concepts and visual storytelling.

Graduates may find employment in a wide range of sectors of entertainment including:

• animation
• film and video production
• video game development
• digital entertainment

SUCCESS FACTORS

This program is well-suited for students who:

• Are open to exploring various styles, techniques and technologies to enhance existing artistic skills and abilities.
• Have a passion for creative idea generation.
• Are able to work in fast-paced individual and team environments.
• Are detail and process-oriented.
• Value and respect the ideas, perspectives, and expertise of others.

Careers

Graduates may find employment as a(n) Art Director, Senior/Lead Concept Artist, Visual Development Artist, Character Artist, Environment Artist, Level Artist, Prop Artist, 2D or 3D Artist, Texture Artist, VFX Artist, Storyboard Artist, Lead Artist, Production Designer, Matte Painter, Background Painter, Clean-up Artist, Character Modeller, Lead Modeller.

Pathways

Please use our Pathways tool to search for pathway options.

The graduate has reliably demonstrated the ability to:

1. Pitch and defend evidence-informed concepts and artistic solutions with a variety of stakeholders to meet project goals.
2. Produce conceptualized art in multiple formats using a pre-production pipeline process in a studio environment to meet stakeholder needs.
3. Leverage existing and emerging technologies to drive innovative processes and outcomes for the visual development and concept art pipeline.
4. Tailor and present a professional creative industries portfolio to meet the needs of a variety of entertainment sector requirements.
5. Research, create, and prototype physical and digital deliverables to refine concepts and support visual problem solving.
6. Apply entrepreneurial, business, and project management skills to
   facilitate the completion of individual and team entertainment industry deliverables.
7. Contribute to and lead multidisciplinary projects while soliciting, providing, and incorporating ongoing feedback to promote respectful, inclusive, and collaborative creative development environments.
8. Develop strategies for professional development to maintain currency, adapt to new technologies, and continuously improve creative skillsets.
9. Identify and apply discipline-specific practices that contribute to the local and global community through social responsibility, economic commitment and environmental stewardship.

Application Information

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ENTERTAINMENT
Program Code 1440X01FWO

Applications to full-time day programs must be submitted with official transcripts showing completion of the academic admission requirements through:

ontariocolleges.ca
60 Corporate Court
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 5J3
1-888-892-2228

Applications are available online www.ontariocolleges.ca 

Applications for Fall Term and Winter Term admission received by February 1 will be given equal consideration. Applications received after February 1 will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis as long as places are available.

International applicants please visit this link for application process information: https://algonquincollege.force.com/myACint/  

For further information on the admissions process, contact:

Registrar`s Office
Algonquin College
1385 Woodroffe Ave
Ottawa, ON K2G 1V8
Telephone: 613-727-0002
Toll-free: 1-800-565-4723
TTY: 613-727-7766
Fax: 613-727-7632
Contact: https://www.algonquincollege.com/ro  

Program Resources