Virtual Production

Entry requirements

This one-year, full-time course is intensive, collaborative, and carefully grounded in professional practice. It is designed for filmmakers, designers, and creative technologists who want to deepen their expertise, work across disciplines, and contribute thoughtfully to the evolving landscape of real-time production.

Months of entry

January

Course content

Our MA in Virtual Production offers intensive, hands-on training in real-time filmmaking for film, television and immersive media. You’ll explore end-to-end VP workflows, from virtual scouting and LED volumes to motion capture and AI-enabled tools. You’ll work from a dedicated studio whilst collaborating with other students, such as cinematography, production design and VFX.

The NFTS is one of the world’s leading film schools – a creative community where filmmakers, designers, and technologists work side by side to explore new approaches to storytelling. This course offers a focused opportunity to develop advanced skills in the tools and workflows that are increasingly shaping contemporary film, television, and immersive media production.

Virtual Production (VP) brings together live-action filmmaking, visual effects, games technology, and real-time rendering to support hybrid production methods in which physical and digital elements are developed and integrated alongside one another. On this course, you will explore the full breadth of VP practice - from virtual scouting and green-screen workflows to LED volume cinematography, motion capture, and the considered use of AI-enabled tools. Throughout, VP is treated not as a replacement for established practice, but as a means of supporting creative decision-making, improving planning, and solving practical production challenges.

Students benefit from access to the NFTS’s dedicated Virtual Production studio, where teaching and projects take place in a professional environment designed specifically for real-time and hybrid workflows. You will work hands-on with VP systems while developing an understanding of how these technologies integrate with cinematography, production design, and visual effects pipelines.

Collaboration is central to the course. You will work with other NFTS students, learning how virtual and physical craft come together on set and how shared workflows support communication across departments.

Specialist workshops, Masterclasses, and the year-long Master’s Portfolio encourage reflection on practice, research, and professional development. Teaching is led by experienced industry practitioners, and the course is closely connected to the NFTS’s partnership with the CoSTAR National Lab, providing insight into ongoing research in real-time imaging, volumetric capture, and emerging production workflows.

Graduates go on to roles such as Virtual Production Supervisor or Assistant, Virtual Art Department Artist, Real-Time Artist, LED Stage Operator, Technical Director, Capture Specialist, Previs or Techvis Artist, and creative technologist roles across XR and immersive media.

Information for international students

This course is open to UK/EU/International students.

Fees and funding

The NFTS awards more scholarships and bursaries to British students, relative to the size of our student body, than almost any other educational institution in the UK. If you’re successful at gaining a place on the course, you will be contacted by our funding team with details on how to apply for one of these scholarships.

All production costs are included in the course fee, including the use of School facilities and equipment.