Crowd Supervisor - Secondment to Sydney; DNEG VFX

DNEG London is looking for an experienced Crowd Supervisor to support and lead our teams across the current slate of exciting shows. This contract in particular will involve a 3-6 month secondment to the DNEG Sydney office in a unique opportunity to be embedded within one of our global teams. More information regarding this opportunity will be provided throughout the recruitment process.

• Supervise the Crowd team and provide them with aesthetic and technical guidance and support.
• Collaborate with Producers, Department Supervisors, Pipeline, and R&D teams, to ensure the smooth running of the crowd department and high-quality output.
• Responsible for implementing efficient and effective ways to integrate crowd workflows and tools within the DNEG pipeline.
• On-going communication with artists, leads, production and supervisor regarding schedules, deadlines and shot/sequence feedback.
• Attend and sometimes drive relevant meetings on shots, sequences and dev work.
• Shot/Workflow setups and troubleshooting technical issues both on the artist/agent level as required.
• Participate in the interviewing and recruiting of the crowd team.
• Identify and break down behaviours into cycles for guiding the cycle anim team to animate.
• Address technical issues and identify best practices for the team.
• Participate in the development of the Crowd Maya/Houdini Pipeline.
• Collaboration with other DNEG global locations to leverage global knowledge and input, reduce duplicated effort, and encourage parity in the methodologies and tooling used.

• Proven experience in producing crowd simulations with an eye for details, a good sense of timing.
• Expert knowledge of Houdini, and good working knowledge of Maya.
• Working knowledge of Python, VEX, and/or C++.
• Experience working in a Linux production environment.
• Experienced in project management, balancing quality with time constraints.
• Expert Creative sense and ability to understand artistic directions from VFX Supe and the Directors and guide the team accordingly.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent artistic, technical, leadership and communication skills.
• Good understanding of the filmmaking process in VFX production.
• Expert understanding of all parts of the production pipeline and processes.
• Previous experience as a Supervisor and/or significant experience in a Lead role.

• Experience working with a USD based pipeline, and rendering through Clarisse and Solaris.
• Previous experience in cycle animation, character animation, rigging, or mocap.
• Additional experience with Motion Builder, Massive, Golaem or other crowd software packages.
• Feature Animation experience.