The Lead Lighting Artist plays a pivotal role in delivering the artistic and technical quality of renders handed off to compositing. As a reference within the team, they guide fellow artists in their day-to-day work while continuing to deliver complex shots autonomously, rigorously, and at a high standard. Working closely with supervision, production, and other departments, they support the project’s vision, maintain clear communication, resolve technical challenges, mentor team members, and contribute to continuous improvement across tools and workflows.
Key Responsibilities:
Creative Quality
Translate visual direction into compelling lighting adapted to the narrative and visual style.
Collaborate with CG, Lighting, and Compositing Supervisors to maintain artistic consistency.
Guide artists toward simple, effective solutions during dailies or briefings.
Add creative value through relevant visual adjustments or artistic variations.
Technical Quality
Ensure render continuity across sequences and deliver clean, optimized outputs.
Identify and fix or flag technical issues related to shading, caches, or setups.
Contribute to the creation, testing, and documentation of tools or templates in Houdini.
Document project specifics clearly in a wiki for team reference.
Leadership & Communication
Lead team briefings, share relevant information, and maintain smooth communication with production.
Provide constructive and supportive feedback during dailies or one-on-one sessions.
Monitor the team’s workload and flag any imbalance to Production.
Participate in turnovers, mid-project evaluations, and post mortems with structured input.
Departmental Support
Mentor junior artists, identify development needs, and support their growth.
Assist in onboarding new team members through practical training or mentorship.
Collaborate with the Department HOD to identify recurring training or tooling needs.
Help structure annual reviews by sharing thoughtful assessments of team members’ performance.
Optimization
Improve lighting setups, reduce scene weight, and optimize render performance.
Identify pipeline stages where time or quality can be gained.
Flag tool or script needs to the Pipeline team and assist in validation.
Test new approaches or technologies for future implementation.