The DAVE School is delighted to announce our newest partnership with Corporacion Unisystem de Colombia in Villavicencio, Colombia. We’re excited to continue building partnerships with international education facilities. The DAVE School has representatives located in several countries worldwide, including Latin America, South East Asia, and Europe.
The DAVE School is approved by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to issue Certificates of Eligibility (Form I-20) through the Student and Exchange Visitors Program (SEVP) and the Student and Exchange Visitors Information System (SEVIS).
To learn more about International Requirements to attend our school, please visit https://bit.ly/3vLEuWo.
Visual Effects Diploma Program
Visual Effects (VFX) is the essence of a movie or TV show once the filming is complete, the explosions, the falling helicopters, or the transformation from 21st century New York into 1920s New York. Scenes that are too hard or dangerous to film, such as smoke, water, oceans, or worlds and environments, come to life through Visual Effects.
The DAVE School’s Visual Effects Diploma program spans 12-months and offers scheduled starts each Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Its uniquely flexible, hybrid format combines nine months of live, online classes with three months of in-person learning here at our Orlando, Florida campus. Students get to refine their skills in an immersive combination of project-based workflows and applied studio skills, preparing them for their advancement into the Visual Effects workplace.
Game Production Diploma Program
Game production is predominantly about imagining and building entire worlds and their inhabitants from scratch and devising immersive experiences that can run and adapt to the demands of user play in real-time. Our GAME PRODUCTION students share much of the initial introduction to their craft with our VFX crew, as the fundamental skills required in 3D modeling, lighting, texturing, and composition have a lot of overlap.
The DAVE School Game Production Diploma (GPD) teaches specifically for success in this thriving industry. Like its sister VFX Diploma, the Game Production Diploma Program spans 12 months and offers scheduled starts each Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. Its uniquely flexible, hybrid format combines nine months of live, online classes with three months of on-campus lessons in Orlando, Florida. During this three-month studio residency, students work together under the direct guidance of their instructors on pre-production techniques of a real game of their making.
Virtual Production Diploma Program
Our flagship Virtual Production (VP) diploma teaches everything from both the VFX and GAME programs and real-time technologies. DAVE School students will learn: how to use LED wall virtual sets, lighting and production techniques for photo-real, real-time production, emerging production technologies, and many leading-edge approaches to the ever-evolving world of contemporary media creation.
It’s 50% longer in duration, spanning 18 months — twelve months of live, online classes, followed by six months of on-campus lessons here in Orlando, Florida. Everything taught within the VFX and GAME Production Diplomas are combined into one cohesive super-diploma, allowing Virtual Production students to develop skills that bridge both disciplines.
Any student in our VFX or GAME Production diploma can choose to extend their initial 12-month choice into this new Virtual Production program.
About The DAVE School
The Digital Animation & Visual Effects (DAVE) School was founded on June 8, 2000, by two Industry executives looking to create #CareerReady artists with a practical animation school. Located on the backlot of Universal Studios Florida®, The DAVE School has an 18,000 square foot facility that includes learning and interactive labs, a dedicated Virtual and Real-Time production stage, a Vicon motion capture system, 3D printing, and VR/AR labs and secure student access 7 days a week.
The DAVE School was created to offer specialized training in Visual Effects with extensive practice under industry-level supervision. The Game Production program followed 13 years later in September of 2014, making it the second program to offer.
At the end of 2017, The DAVE School introduced fully online bachelor programs in Motion Graphics and the additional Bachelor’s Degrees in Visual Effects and Game Production for Diploma students seeking to enhance their educational experience.
In February 2018, The DAVE School was purchased by NUC University and became an academic unit of NUC University. The DAVE School is accredited under The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. In 2021, The DAVE School added its program in Virtual Production. Today, DAVE School offers specialized training in Visual Effects, Game Production, and Virtual Production with extensive practice under industry-level supervision.
NUC University (NUC) is an accredited institution and a member of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) www.msche.org. NUC’s NUC University – IBC Technical Division (NUC-IBC), NUC University – Florida Technical College (NUC-FTC), and The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School (The DAVE School) is included in this accreditation. NUC’s accreditation status is Accreditation Reaffirmed. The Commission’s most recent action on the institution’s accreditation status on 2019 was to reaffirm accreditation. MSCHE is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA)