Game Design Work Experience Brisbane

The video game industry is growing fast. The expertise and practices of game design + development is spilling over into a range of sectors, with design and development practices becoming widely adopted outside of purely gaming purposes.

View the recorded Animation & Game Design session from our Online Open Day below.

Why Study Game Design at JMC?

Use the world's leading development platform for games and real-time content

Take advantage of our 18 camera dedicated motion capture suites

Study abroad in Tokyo and Osaka Japan, or the Netherlands

Courses Available

Bachelor of Creative Arts (Game Design)

2 Years (6 trimesters)
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
Undergraduate

Combine interactivity, game design and programming with traditional art practice and animation with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Game Design). Specialise in what you are passionate about as you select from a list of major and minor elective streams to hone in on your skills.

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Diploma of Creative Arts (Game Design)

8 Months (2 trimesters)
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
Undergraduate

At Diploma level, design, develop, prototype and implement an idea, and gain hands-on knowledge of leading industry software and game engines. Explore everything from concept drawing, digital sculpting and visual narrative to expressive animation techniques, game art development, 3D modelling, asset creation and building immersive game spaces

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CURRICULUM

Meet the Team

Sean Callinan

Head of Animation + Game Design (Sydney)

The essence of Sean's career has been a broad-ranging interest in all aspects of design for film, television and other screen media. His career prior to teaching spans a wealth of experience, beginning as co-founder of his own production company, Meaningful Eye Contact (MEC), with Alex Proyas and Peter Miller. Sean quickly garnered a reputation for eye-catching visuals and inventive concepts. While producing music video clips for high profile acts such as INXS, Crowded House, and Fleetwood Mac, Sean developed a passion for the disciplines of production design, art direction, graphics and animation that would become instrumental in his future career.

During this period Sean received an AFI nomination for "Best Art Direction" for his work on Alex Proyas' post-apocalyptic gothic fantasy feature Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds. MEC were also the recipients of a number of music video awards through the eighties.

Having turned freelance, Sean continued to work on numerous television commercials, music videos, television productions and several more feature films. Animation and motion graphics had always been an important part of his practice, but in 2001 Sean made the decision to leave Production Design and focus on these areas whilst undertaking a Masters in Design at UTS.

Since then he has undertaken a range of work including infographic animation, screen graphics, museum interactives, collaborations on broadband and mobile platform content, and personal projects. Prior to accepting the role as Head of Animation and Game Development at JMC Academy, Sean taught animation, video design and screen-based media at UTS for over twenty years.

Sean Callinan

Head of Animation + Game Design (Sydney)

Kim Edwards

Head of Animation & Game Design (Melbourne)

Kim is a technologist, educator and animator with over a decade of experience working in media education.
From Sultans to Festivals, Health organisations to studios, he has maintained an active practice working with
a broad range of clients in animation. Kim believes animation and interactive media is a product, comment and forecaster of our global society.

Media dynamically shifts into new territories, requiring new perspectives and Kim sees the responsibility of education is to enable active creatives in this dynamic space.

Kim Edwards

Head of Animation & Game Design (Melbourne)

Media dynamically shifts into new territories, requiring new perspectives and Kim sees the responsibility of education is to enable active creatives in this dynamic space.

Lance Balchin

Head of Animation & Game Design (Brisbane)

Lance is an educator in the creative industries, with over 15 years hands-on experience teaching Photoshop. Lance's relationship with Photoshop started in 1991 with Version 2.5 (pre layers!) and he has built a substantial understanding of the software over 25 years. Lance currently lives in Brisbane, Australia and was admitted to practice law two years ago.

Lance Balchin is also a children's illustrator and author who has internationally published two books in the 'Mechanica' series with the Five Mile Press, Simon & Schuster, Little Bee Books and Bonnier Publishing. There are a further seven picture books to follow as well as a set of four novels. The books carry a strong environmental message and are written for children aged from 8 to 14.

Lance Balchin

Head of Animation & Game Design (Brisbane)

Petr Joura

Senior Game Design Lecturer

Brendan Votano

Animation & Game Design Lecturer

Brendan is a multi-platform developer and the Founder of Sydney-based game studio Blue Volcano, a game and multimedia company to challenge the way we play. Brendan has presented personal and commercial projects globally within the augmented reality, virtual reality, and live performance gaming spaces including at The National Maritime Museum in Sydney, National Museum of Singapore, SXSW Festival, Tokyo Game Show, and PAX AUS.

He is always seeking creative projects that give participants new experiences using emerging technologies. In addition to his creative game and music endeavours he also enjoys teaching programming, prototyping, 3D animation, and game design at JMC Academy in Sydney.

Brendan completed his studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, and Kyushu University, Japan including a Masters of Animation, a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies.

Brendan Votano

Animation & Game Design Lecturer

Dr Kelvin Baker

Animation + Game Design Lecturer

Kelvin was awarded a Doctor of Visual Arts in Animation from Griffith University in 2008 and is a Level 3 Power-animator awarded by Alias|Wavefront in Belgium. He is a qualified registered teacher, maintains vocational training and assessment qualifications. Kelvin examines externally for Griffith University as required and currently lectures 3D Animation part-time at The University of Melbourne - Victoria College of Arts.

Kelvin has lectured in traditional animation, animation history, pre-production and production management at JMC.

He has worked for Griffith University Queensland College of Art, QTQ Channel Nine, Burbank Productions, Education Queensland and Nutnuts in a number of related roles and has uncredited roles for pre-visualisation on Ghost Ship and Peter Pan.

Kelvin is positioned in the AEAF Hall of Fame for 'Bully and the Beast' 07. A summary of his thesis 'From Pencil to Mouse: The 21st Century Animation House' as 'A model for the design of a new-skills-strategy for the Creative Industries sector' can be found here.

Dr Kelvin Baker

Animation + Game Design Lecturer

Kelvin has lectured in traditional animation, animation history, pre-production and production management at JMC.

Dr Katharine Buljan

Animation Lecturer

Katharine Buljan is a Sydney-based artist, independent scholar and lecturer. She has exhibited her paintings in Australia, Italy, Hong Kong and Sweden and has received a number of awards. In 2016 she was been a finalist at the 39th Alice Prize and in 2015 a finalist at the Mosman Art Prize. In 2015 she was an artist in residence at the University of Tasmania (Launceston), and an artist in residence in Sydney (A. R. P. Artist Residency Program). In 2013, she was selected as a finalist for the 62nd Blake Prize for Religious Art. In 1995, Katharine was awarded a European Parchment at the XV Review of Contemporary Art in Galleria Forum Interart in Rome. She also does stop-motion animation.

Katharine's theoretical training and research strongly underpin and complement her art practice. She is very passionate about teaching and was a sessional academic at the University of Technology, Sydney, and guest lecturer at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She is the co-author of the book on Japanese animation titled Anime, Religion and Spirituality: Profane and Sacred Worlds in Contemporary Japan (Equinox, 2015).

Dr Katharine Buljan

Animation Lecturer

Start your online application now

Now enrolling for September 2021 and February 2022!

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FAQs

Yes. We offer multiple pathways into the course regardless of your current drawing abilities and art is one of these pathways. If you don't feel all too comfortable drawing, we offer pathways in technical and conceptual skills.

A portfolio essentially relates to samples of your work. If you have nice finished artwork, that's fantastic, but not essential. What we're looking for is that you have a drive to create things and are passionate about the field, so show us that in your portfolio. Things like sketches or drawings, notes, ideas and characters you've invented are all great.

It's your passion for creating, telling stories and discovering new forms of play that we're really looking for, and we teach the course from beginner level up so you're in good hands.

The Game course is primarily focused on art and design, but we recognise that a familiarity with scripting and programming is a key part of the skillset of a game artist, and you will certainly learn skills in those areas as well. The emphasis is on understanding the theory behind games, designing interesting challenges, mechanics, concepts and stories, and creating the art and assets for those concepts. You would be studying a mix of art and design, software and programming skills, and theoretical concepts.

Yes. The JMC Academy is registered and regulated by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) which is Australia's independent national regulator of the higher education sector, both public and private.

While the availability of internships and work placements depends on the individual companies and studios in the industry, we have strong relationships with many practising game designers and game studios. As a result of these connections there is the potential for you to experience internships and placements, studio visits, talks and workshops by industry practitioners, and assessment feedback opportunities from industry people during dedicated 'speed networking' nights. Where practical, interviews will be arranged for individual graduating students with companies seeking to recruit new talent.

Applications used in the Game Design course include Maya for modelling and animation, MotionBuilder for motion capture, Substance Painter & Designer for texturing and ZBrush for digital sculpture.

Unity 3D will be your core game engine and you'll work with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects. You will also have the chance to try a range of other packages such as Nuke, SourceTree & Foundry Mari.

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