Visual Effects and Animation Schools - Production Excellence 2022
2021 Update! The Best Schools and Colleges in the World to learn visual effects and animation in a production environment.
Since 2011, The Rookies has been supplying reliable performance information about colleges and universities to students, their families, academics, university leaders, governments, and business. The results for 2022 are based on a staggering 58,443 portfolio reviews, completed by a team of over 150+ industry professionals.
The Rookies World School Rankings® are not like other education based ranking systems. They are driven and judged by industry professionals without the interference of paid advertising dollars that cloud the judgement of other ranking sites.
• Scott Thompson, founder of Think Tank Training Centre.
We feel that traditional school rankings – that include peer and employer reviews, faculty-to-student ratio, citations and other data – are not adequate when ranking creative schools. This might work in industries with more traditional career paths, but when it comes to technical and creative roles things are much more complicated, and we need to take a different approach.
Our answer to this is quite arduous, but very accurate. The process involves reviewing thousands of digital portfolios from graduating students. These portfolios are the equivalent of a final exam for traditional industries, and provide an incredibly accurate dataset of how well the university or college has prepared their students for industry level skills.
Learn more about how we rank schools.
So what is Production Excellence?
Production Excellence is an accolade awarded to the very best schools that focus on working as a team to create short films and short form projects. Many schools focus on teaching the core skills of animation and film making, however it takes quite a different approach to creating an immersive experience that replicates a production studio.
"We believe that schools that replicate a production studio experience provide a great advantage to students because it encourages team work, a strong understanding of pipelines, scheduling experience, resource management and problem solving", says Andrew McDonald, co-founder of The Rookies.
During the Rookie Awards 2022, entrants were eligible to submit work to Game of the Year categories in either Console & PC, Mobile or Immersive Media. Each of these films were reviewed by an official judging panel consisting over 150+ industry experts. The judges reviewed films based on criteria such as creativity, technical skills, story, production quality and originality. Based on these results a range of finalists and winners were selected and a first pass of schools were shortlisted for this award.
Visual Effects - Production Excellence 2022
The official rankings for 2022 have been calculated based on the performance of student team based projects submitted to our industry panel. Full details can be found further down the page about how we calculate and rank schools.
| Rank | School | Location | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ArtFX School |
France | 112.38 |
| 2 | SF Film School |
Korea | 76.09 |
| 3 | Sheridan College | Canada, Online | 73.36 |
| 4 | Columbia University | United States | 66.84 |
| 5 | ISART Digital |
France, Canada | 66.77 |
| 6 | University of Hertfordshire |
United Kingdom, Online | 66.74 |
| 7 | New3dge |
France | 64.84 |
| 8 | Netherlands Film Academy | Netherlands | 61.51 |
| 9 | Breda University of Applied Sciences |
Netherlands | 58.07 |
| 10 | Escape Studios |
United Kingdom, Online | 57.93 |
3D Animation - Production Excellence 2022
The official rankings for 2022 have been calculated based on the performance of student team based projects submitted to our industry panel. Full details can be found further down the page about how we calculate and rank schools.
| Rank | School | Location | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ESMA |
France | 114.63 |
| 2 | PÔLE 3D Digital & Creative School | France | 92.32 |
| 3 | GOBELINS, l'école de l'image | France | 82.24 |
| 4 | Ecole des Nouvelles Images | France | 78.56 |
| 5 | New3dge |
France | 77.87 |
| 6 | RUBIKA |
France | 77.56 |
| 7 | Ringling College of Art and Design |
United States | 77.04 |
| 8 | ArtFX School |
France | 75.68 |
| 9 | ECV |
France | 74.49 |
| 10 | DigiPen Institute of Technology | Multiple Locations | 70.27 |
2D Animation - Production Excellence 2022
The official rankings for 2022 have been calculated based on the performance of student team based projects submitted to our industry panel. Full details can be found further down the page about how we calculate and rank schools.
| Rank | School | Location | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GOBELINS, l'école de l'image | France | 91.31 |
| 2 | The Animation Workshop/ VIA University College |
Denmark | 87.20 |
| 3 | DigiPen Institute of Technology | Singapore, Spain, United States, Online | 78.53 |
| 4 | Savannah College of Art and Design |
United States, France, Online | 76.36 |
| 5 | M3DS Academy |
Macedonia | 76.04 |
| 6 | School of Visual Arts |
United States | 75.75 |
| 7 | Bellecour Ecole |
France | 74.83 |
| 8 | ECV |
France | 72.75 |
| 9 | ESCENA Escuela de Animación | Mexico | 71.04 |
| 10 | Cleveland Institute of Art | United States | 69.71 |
Do you need advice on where to study?
Get matched with an experienced student advisor that will help you choose the perfect digital media course, creative college, and study mode that will kickstart your education in creative industries.
Talk to an AdvisorExamples of student work submitted from these top schools and colleges
Follow these links below to view some of the incredible entries that our judging panel were tasked with reviewing. These entries showcase the quality of work created by students which helped rank their schools.
How we calculate global school rankings
Our rankings focus on the quality of short films submitted to the Rookie Awards 2022 as teams, rather than individuals. Each short film receives a score by the judging panel and contributes to each Schools overall Production Excellence score.
Important details about how a school score is calculated:
- Schools must submit a team project.
- Each entry receives a final project score. Max 50 points.
- Each entry receives a team work score. Max 50 points.
- Each category finalist receives 2 bonus points toward School Score.
- Each category highly commended receives 4 bonus points toward School Score.
- Each category runner up receives 6 bonus points toward School Score.
- Each category winner receives 10 bonus points toward School Score.
Having the ‘employability of the Artist’ as a judging criteria is key, for in the creative fields you can be free of constraint and let the ideas flow but getting and building a career requires an additional ability to be practical and having ideas that can be executed and maintained.
• Darryn Melrose, former Chief Executive of Media Design School.
Do you feel your school should be listed here?
Over 500 international schools submitted their student work to the Rookie Awards 2022 and were reviewed by industry professionals. To make sure your school is considered for next year's rankings please use the live-chat system located at the bottom-right of this page, or email our team at [email protected].