• Designs, implements and critiques generic lighting and compositing to help facilitate the creative "look" of the project
• Determines the need and extent of mattes, paintings, effects and shaders for digitally composited shots.
• Regularly interacting with the HOP/Producer, and VFX Supervisor to understand desired look as it relates to lighting for the production.
• Deliver final shots to production and ensure final technical check is complete.
• Tracking lighting continuity within sequences.
• Participates as a supervising team member in determining various design solutions; efficiency improvements and provides artistic feedback on a shot and sequence level to other team members of the production.
• Coaches and guides the team of Lighting Artists to execute quality performance for the project.
• Help to ensure the overall efficiency and quality of lighting setups with input from VFX Supervisor
• Strong knowledge of node-based lighting and compositing tools and path-trace rendering
• Strong knowledge of lighting and compositing techniques.
• Help build, maintain and document tools to increase the efficiency and consistency of the output from the team
• Define, submit, prioritize and manage tickets that need implementation from the Workflow and Development teams
• Manage farm priorities and resources to ensure efficient, cost-effective use.
• Familiarity with feature animation pipelines and pipeline issues.
• Demonstrable experience in sequence lighting, compositing and rendering with modern renderers.
• Strong grasp of artistic principles, and cg techniques
• Strong sense of composition, light and color theory
• Maintain strong balance between artistic and technical skill, with thorough understanding of Animation workflow, standardizing it across all shows and the other departments
• Work on reinforcing workflow between lookdev/FX and lighting
• Strong knowledge of node-based lighting techniques (Houdini, Gaffer, Katana) and path tracing rendering (Arnold, Renderman, Cycles).
• Partners with Artist Management to guide artists’ overall professional development, providing performance feedback, mentoring, assist with resolving performance issues and maintaining positive morale amongst the crew.
• Attend all relevant meetings to promote effective communication throughout the production team, to keep a healthy and gratifying work environment
• Actively participates in the recruiting and staffing of the lighting team - assesses the work of prospective candidates for the hiring process and works with Artist Management on hiring decisions.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, particularly the ability to use positive tone and attitude to diffuse conflict, provide solutions, and cultivate a fun and productive working environment
• Work on improving dynamism between departments and lighting team and promote communication and development of new techniques by artists.
• Work on creating/maintaining new and current artists training material and documentation.
• Offer creative and technical leadership to the artists of the team to help them achieve their goals.

• A minimum of 6+ years Lighting experience on CG animated project
• 2 years of experience as a Lead
• Supervisory experience is an asset
• Strong aptitude for technical workflow challenges such as directory structure, file formats, naming conventions, scripts, automation tools, automated dailies, etc.
• Assess and optimize render performance to make optimal use of available renderfarm allocation
• Strong working knowledge of various software platforms including Blender, Katana, Maya, Shake, Nuke, or any other high-end CG or compositing software.
• Strong working knowledge of Linux, Python and shell scripting required.
• Look development and/or shader writing preferred
• Ability to plan and execute complex 3D lighting scenes including working with layers and passes, doing complex comps and optimizing scenes and renders
• Some photography experience a plus (understanding of composition, photography terms like depth of field, FOV, aperture, exposure, dynamic range)
• Highly proficient skills in technical problem solving.
• Strong communication skills (written, verbal and interpersonal)
• Ability to train and coach artists in Lighting techniques and approaches

Benefits

• Great company culture, with a team that is very technically proficient, highly motivated & excited to work on projects that will change the industry
• Competitive health and dental benefits
• Casual dress-code

Tangent Animation is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodation upon request for candidates taking part in the recruitment process.