Technologist, Production Workflow - Animation

Job Description

The Creative Technologies & Infrastructure team sets technical requirements and best practices for production, drives new industry standards, provides direct support to Netflix Original Productions, and stays up-to-date with advancements in professional and consumer technology that can help evolve how creative work is done. Our engineers and technologists are subject matter experts who offer varied yet overlapping backgrounds in motion picture production, post-production, and distribution - image science, editorial, color correction, image capture, encoding, compression, video, audio... Every day, we collaborate with the crews and vendors working on our Netflix Original programming as well as our internal physical production, post-production, distribution, marketing, facilities, and development teams.

This role involves working closely with the Netflix animation divisions, production partners, and vendors in achieving high-quality, efficient animation imaging pipelines. In addition to supporting projects on a title level, you will spend time actively investigating methods to evolve animation workflows to improve efficiency, increase creative opportunities, and maximize image quality. This may entail researching and evaluating advanced technologies, as well as improving upon existing industry standards.

Skills and Requirements:
• 7+ years of experience in animation technology (2D & CG), for both features and series.
• 5 years of Animation Production experience in feature or series, both preferred.
• Knowledge of and relationships with technology solutions, equipment, studios and service vendors in the animation space.
• Knowledge of animation archival practices, and the opportunities to improve them.
• Ability to clearly articulate and document technical concepts (e.g. color management, image bit depth, Dolby Vision, etc.), and explain how they impact the creative process.
• Strong knowledge of workflows including animation pipelines, compositing process, delivery, editorial, archive and the ability to specify efficient workflows and identify additional tools required.
• Working knowledge of Adobe Flash/Animate, Substance, Mari, After Effects, ToonBoom, Maya, Houdini, Nuke.
• Working knowledge of programming and scripting languages, such as Python and C++.
• Strong understanding of CG pipeline (modeling, rigging, texturing, look development, environments, creature FX, lighting and FX)
• A passion for the moving image, whether synthetically or photographically generated.
• Compulsive curiosity.
• Knowledge of or participation in industry associations and standards bodies.
• Familiarity with animation talent, theory, history and styles.

As Production Workflow Technologist, Animation, you will:
• Provide technical and best practices guidance to animation productions at Netflix.
• Partner with technology departments to bridge production requirements for development.
• Assess and triage production challenges, escalating issues where appropriate to domain experts.
• Actively participate in the entire production workflow, championing solutions that mitigate risk and complexity to animation productions.
• Evaluate various vendors and markets for technical readiness to deliver to our specifications.
• Educate various internal and external teams on technical specifications and production best practices for Netflix animation productions.
• Participate in documentation, tutorials and other support resources to facilitate the education of creative partners and vendors about our requirements, best practices, and initiatives.
• Gather insights from our productions to ascertain bottlenecks in the animation pipeline,exposing strategic opportunities that yield efficiency gains and increased creative opportunity in imaging workflows.
• Research, evaluate, document and share findings about 3rd party emerging animation imaging and workflow technologies, tools, and software.
• Identify challenges and opportunities presented by emerging technology, and engage with manufacturers to align them to our strategies and requirements.
• Help troubleshoot media assets and imaging workflows during the production phase.
• Provide input to our developers to create tools that facilitate animation production, review and archive.
• Contribute in developing strategies to achieve our production goals, improve efficiency, and foster the evolution of animation industry practices.
• Represent the Netflix Creative Technologies group at industry functions, conferences, committee meetings, etc.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-d86j9q-3-19-31-73-42 in your application.