Senior Lighting Technical Director

This role is considered Hybrid, which means the employee will work 2-3 days onsite at a Company designated location and occasionally from home.

Position Summary

The Senior Lighting TDs can independently light, render, and do moderate-level compositing of very complex shots, needing only initial direction and guidance from their supervisors. 

What You’ll Do

• Design and implement direct and reflected lighting and shadows for assigned shots that meet art and tone direction

• Ensure that assigned shots fit the continuity of the sequence and be able to create sequence-based lighting setups that can be completed by less experienced Lighting TD

• Develop solutions and techniques that meet art/technical direction. Trouble-shoots asset and pipeline technical issues and optimizes rendering setups

• Participate in team review of work under development

• Navigate and use previous setups for at least a dozen shots, insertion of shot specialization, managing multiple assets and lighting setups

• Take in implicit surface and volumetric datasets, light using varying shadowing strategies, imitate distributed light sources. Management of volumetric light setups, including shadowing and cucoloris development

• Light, material assign and render for actors using CG hair and scattering skin materials

• Set up and light very complex/multiple creatures (hairy or furry) and elements.

• Write plugins, set up sequences, debug simulations and write set up and rman surface shaders with proficiency

• Write/hack rman procedural and volumetric shaders, as well as procedural and surface shaders with proficiency

• Animate  moderate objects with proficiency

• Excellent knowledge of Renderman and other unbiased rendering systems. Needs to know one or more major 3D applications, including Katana, Maya, or Zeno

• Set a standard for all TDs in continually raising the bar for speed, quality of work, and adaptability

• Design and create lighting and the look of computer generated objects and scenes

• Create images, effects, and programs for digitally composited sequences

• Compile various elements of a shot and see it through to completion

• Demonstrate good listening and communication skills by openly receiving direction and criticism by asking good questions to confirm clear understanding of the directions and how to approach what needs to be done. Once clear, implements the requested changes immediately and raises flags right away if a solution is not quickly found or if there are any delays, making sure the Supervisors and Production are kept in the loop and are up-to-date on the status of one’s shot work

• Demonstrate solid presentation/communication skills in dailies/shot review by clearly and briefly outlining what has been accomplished and what next should be addressed in the shot

• Demonstrate solid problem solving skills

• Demonstrate the ability to prioritize tasks managing time very well, providing everyone with accurate time estimates on shot task completion

What We’re Looking For

• At least 5 years relevant professional VFX experience and at least a college level diploma in computer graphics, fine arts, design, or photography, or related field; OR, at least 7 years relevant professional VFX experience in lieu of education

• Proven ability to quickly pick up new proprietary pipelines

• Excellent pipeline scripting ability

• Can pick up new techniques quickly and easily and debug just about anything

• Solid compositing ability, can wrangle bluescreen extractions, working knowledge of Nuke

• Experience with either Katana, 3DS Max, Maya, Houdini or other software

• Linux and scripting ability

• Renderman/Vray

• Nuke

• Experience in Python and/or Lua

As part of your application please submit a demo reel, shot breakdown, or equivalent showcasing your work. A current resume is required.

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