The GenFX Lead is a senior technical and creative artist who bridges the role between shot-level execution and department-level supervision. The Lead is responsible for the day-to-day creative and technical quality of a group of GenFX Artists, ensuring work meets production standards while also personally tackling the most complex and technically demanding shots. This role requires deep proficiency across both generative AI and traditional VFX disciplines, with strong problem-solving, mentorship and workflow design capabilities.
Key Responsibilities
Creative & Technical Leadership:
- Set the visual quality bar for assigned sequences or shot groups, interpreting Supervisor direction into actionable artist briefs
- Take ownership of hero shots and technically complex work requiring advanced setups, complex inpainting/outpainting or novel generative approaches
- Troubleshoot and solve complex integration challenges across AI-generated and traditional CG/2D elements
- Review artist work in dailies preparation, provide constructive technical and artistic feedback and ensure notes are addressed efficiently
Workflow Architecture & Optimization:
- Design and maintain reusable ComfyUI and other workflows for team use in conjunction with Visual Pioneering (VPi) Workflow specialists.
- Optimize GenAI and compositing workflows for speed and consistency, identifying bottlenecks in the hybrid-VFX pipeline
- Ensure seamless handoffs between GenFX outputs and downstream Compositing, CG, and Lighting departments
- Prototype and evaluate new generative tools and techniques, providing recommendations to Supervision on production readiness
Mentorship & Team Development:
- Mentor GenFX Artists on both generative technique and traditional VFX fundamentals
- Identify skill gaps within the team and recommend and initiate targeted training or knowledge-sharing sessions
- Contribute to onboarding documentation and training materials for new GenFX team members
Production Coordination:
- Manage shot assignments and priorities within assigned groups, coordinating with production on scheduling and capacity
- Communicate technical risks, timeline impacts and creative trade-offs to Supervision and production teams
- Participate in sequence-level planning and bidding, providing time and effort estimates for AI-augmented workflows
Quality Control:
- Enforce technical standards for color space compliance (ACES/OCIO), resolution, fidelity and integration quality
- Perform QC across the team's output, catching logical errors (lighting and shadow direction, physics, anatomy) before Supervisor review
- Ensure temporal consistency and spatial accuracy across multi-shot beats and sequences
Qualifications
- 5 years in high-end VFX (Film/Episodic), with at least 1 year in a Lead or equivalent elevated-responsibility role within a relevant discipline
- Advanced compositing skills in Nuke; camera projections, 3D compositing, deep compositing, template setup and sequence management
- Proven experience designing and executing complex generative workflows in production, including ControlNet stacking, style LoRA application and temporal coherence management
- Strong working knowledge of Maya, Houdini, or Blender for blocking, depth map generation, and hybrid 3D/AI workflows. Understanding of USD/Alembic pipelines preferred
- Demonstrated track record of successfully delivering GenAI-augmented shots at a professional, photorealistic standard
- Proven ability to mentor artists, provide clear and constructive feedback, and manage shot-group workloads
- Python proficiency for automating ComfyUI workflows, writing Nuke gizmos or bridging tool APIs (preferred)
- Experience with LoRA training and dataset curation for production use (preferred)
- Hands-on experience with Gaussian Splatting or emerging 3D-from-AI workflows (preferred)
- Background or studies in film cinematography, photography or matte painting (preferred)
$150,000 - $180,000 CAD a year
This salary range is specific to applicants applying to our position in Vancouver, Canada. To determine your base salary, we consider your qualifications, skills, and experience. These considerations can cause your compensation to vary outside of this range and will also be dependent on your location.
