Lead Facial Capture Artist

Job Description

Position at Industrial Light & Magic

LEAD FACIAL CAPTURE ARTIST – LONDON STUDIO

Guiding the Face Cap Artists working on shots in the assigned sequence to insure that the VFX Supervisor’s direction is realised in addition to working on their own shots. Ensuring consistency and quality across the body of work produced by the team below them. Creating documentation to aid training and provide reference material for team. Working with other departments such as pipe, creature dev and modelling to guide on facial shapes, troubleshoot issues, to overcome them and successfully deliver the work to the required standard (likely outlined by CG/VFX Supe). Responsible for bidding and briefing work.
On any given day, your primary responsibilities and accountabilities will include:
• Working closely with the Face-cap Lead/Supervisor, a Junior Facial Capture TD would be responsible for:
• Starting from a live action performance of an actor, create roto shapes to define the deformation of the eyes and mouth.
• Anatomy of rigs - face shapes to require certain results.
• Using proprietary software and a library of facial expressions, generate an accurate representation of the head movement and changing face shapes of the actor.
• Feedback to Leads on continued improvements for rigging and shapes.
• Animate the jaw, eye gaze and blinks on the CG rig to match the actor.
• Using sculpting tools, create corrective shapes to fix any issues with the solved facial mesh once it is re-targeted onto the renderable CG character.
• Retime the performance to match the editorial reference for a given shot.
• Submit your work for approval and take on-board both technical and creative notes from your Facial Lead/Supe.

Here are the skills and experience you need to be successful in this role:
• Experience in a related subject (computer animation/computer science/vfx) or course from recognised VFX institute.
• Experience as Face Cap artist and of leading a team in some capacity.
• The ability to learn new software and workflows based on training documents and video tutorials.
• A keen eye for detail with good problem solving skills and a proactive mind set.
• The ability to work well independently and as part of a team.
• Good communication skills as the role requires constant dialogue with the team lead, the team, production and other departments.
• Excellent time management in order to keep on schedule.
• Experience of working in a live action VFX pipeline.
• Experience in gathering information on location for match move is a plus.
• Sharp eyes for motion, timing and expression a big plus for facial related work.
• Experience of either solving facial performances or modelling face shapes, and thorough understanding of facial anatomy.
• Experience in a 3D software package (such as maya) and show confidence with the interface, modelling and sculpting.
• Knowledge of a tracking software package such as 3DEqualizer, Pf Track or SynthEyes
• Exposure to LINUX OS.
• Must have the ability and willingness to learn new in house proprietary software.
• Exposure to motion capture - particularly facial work.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-g6kqvq-3-142-199-138-42 in your application.