Technical Director

Skydance offers a dynamic, inclusive, and ever-evolving culture where innovative ideas are welcomed, and growth fostered. The partnership between unique creativity and technological advancements are demonstrated within each pillar of the company. At the heart of it all is a commitment to boldly entertaining and relevant storytelling.

While all Animation studios look to hire people who are creative and hard-working, Skydance Animation is specifically looking for pioneers who seek to push the limits of what the world’s most collaborative art form can achieve, and to give those pioneers the space and the resources to build a new studio that’s doing something different.

If you’ve ever dreamt of what the early days of Hollywood must have been like, of what it takes to roll up your sleeves and break new ground, figure out a new process, and to one day say, “I was there when it all began,” then welcome aboard…

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As a Technical Director, you will have a deep involvement in designing and developing innovative tools to overcome specific challenges related to the department’s developments for our next animated feature film. This effort seeks to implement solutions that off-the-shelf software would not provide while maximizing productivity and meeting the high quality standard set by the company. The scope of the developments may be from a simple python script to a larger development involving complex algorithms. 

• TDs are embedded within the productions to closely collaborate and support the artists and production management.
• Reports to the  Production Technology Supervisor on the status of technical development projects, tool performance, production operations and support statuses.
• Develop and maintain the required tools following the requirements supplied by the production departments and following the Production Engineering Team guides.
• Partner with Artists and other Engineers to iterate, debug, document, and refine tools and processes for feature film production.
• Acts as the first line of support to solve day-to-day problems artists may encounter.
• Work on short-term needs, originated by shot challenges.

• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, or comparable discipline and/or technical and creative knowledge gained through equivalent experience
• Expert in Python
• Experience programming with one or more of the following software: Maya, Houdini, Nuke, and Mari
• Experience with Post and Preproduction workflows
• Experience with Non-linear editing suites:  e.g. Avid Media Composer, Premiere, Resolve
• Familiar with common media encodings and transcoding software: e.g. ffmpeg
• Experience in Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems
• Experience working with a source version control system (git)
• Experience in animation productions
• Good understanding of production pipelines
• Experience with agile development and scrum methodology
• User interaction design with a working knowledge of standard UI toolkits (PySide2)
• 3+ years of experience preferred

• Experience in computer animation, visual effects, or the game industry 
• Experience supporting animation pre-production departments such as Story, Editorial, and Previz
• Experience with pipeline and plugin development in third party DCC tools
• Experience with software development languages such as Java, Javascript, C++
• Experience with other toolkits and systems such as Qt, Docker, Git, AWS
• Experience with OSX, Windows, and Linux operating systems

The salary range for this position in Los Angeles is $118,000 – $150,000.  The salary offered may vary based on the candidate’s location, qualifications, experience and relevant expertise, among other factors.  The range indicated is for base salary only and does not reflect the total compensation package, including bonus, benefits, etc. 

#animation

Skydance is a diversified media company founded by David Ellison in 2010 to create high quality, event-level entertainment for global audiences. The Company brings to life stories of immersive worlds across its feature film, television, interactive, and animation divisions.

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