Regional Only | Lead Lighting and Compositing Artist

About The Role

Our Lead Lighting and Compositing Artists (“L&C”) are wonderful visual storytellers and excellent motivators. They lead their team in defining the mood and atmosphere of our narratives, and highlight the charming details of our characters, props and environments.

Your day-to-day will focus on creating the lighting of our episodes, finessing the colours in compositing, whilst always keeping the right balance between high quality and meeting deadlines. You will also be responsible for distributing work across your team members so that the workload is evenly balanced, and communicate with your supervisor and other departments to make sure the project is running smoothly.

We are very happy to discuss flexible, hybrid and remote working options for all our vacancies. Please note, this opportunity is due to start late February 2026 and that this vacancy can close early if we receive a high number of applications.

The successful candidates will need to be based in the UK and will require the right to work in the UK.

Ideally, the successful candidate will be within a commutable distance to our Brighton Zoo studio, though this is not essential.

Day to day:

• Leading a team of lighting and compositing artists
• Creating lighting scenes in Maya with assets from the animation and effects departments and then compositing these rendered shots in Nuke to create the final shot
• Tweaking provided light rigs, render set-ups and compositing templates to achieve the required look shots
• Tweaking render settings to optimise the efficiency of renders
• Monitoring renders to ensure they are within a given render time budget
• Arranging daily catch ups with your team to make sure they are on track and aware of their daily tasks
• Working with the Supervisor to brief your team on new episodes
• Managing your team efficiently to meet the deadlines of all assigned shots. Flagging to the Supervisor and Production in advance if there are any potential issues
• Responsible for quality control across your team's episodes, and making sure the episodes are presented to the Director and Supervisor in a way that is clean and to the high standard of the production
• Fixing errors and glitches through problem solving and addressing notes efficiently
• Talking up and down the pipeline to other supervisors and leads, troubleshooting any issues, as well as keeping Production and Supervisor aware where appropriate
• Supervising or working on R&D to make sure any necessary research is done before each episode starts
• Producing templates for L&C with or without the support of team members, to maintain consistent quality across your team and support junior team members
• Taking on the more challenging or technical shots in the episode
• Mentoring the team and helping with their development, including participating in your team’s review sessions along with the Supervisor
• Updating the Supervisor on the team’s progress, communicating any concerns regarding the teams’ performance and wellbeing

About You

Must Have:

• Great communication and a motivational team leader, naturally sharing your knowledge and skills with other team members
• Knowledge of lighting principles and how light is used to meet a creative brief, especially in stylised animation
• Technical understanding of how lighting works in 3D rendering - different types of lights, render setups, physically based rendering, ray tracing and global illumination - using Maya and a render engine comparable to Redshift
• Technical understanding of biased rendering to optimise sampling, making your renders efficient and avoiding noise and artefacts
• An understanding of colour theory, aesthetics and composition
• Technical understanding of utility passes (Z, Position and Normals) and how they are used in compositing using Nuke
• Understanding of camera depth of field
• Problem solving skills to find the best approach to meeting the brief as well as troubleshooting issues and asking questions if unsure
• An eye for detail for scrutinising final shots for any errors or inconsistencies
• Ability to respond positively to feedback and develop from it
• Confidence in working independently. Being diligent, taking initiative and being reliable
• Being organised and managing yours and your team’s time efficiently
• Ability to help and support your team, contributing to the development and growth of your team members e.g. setting defined goals and giving clear direction

Bonus Points:

• Previous experience as a Lead L&C Artist on an animation production
• Knowledge of Python scripting
• Knowledge of After Effects
• Experience using FTrack
• Knowledge of shading
• Understanding of a 3D production pipeline