Crowd Lead - Houdini; TV Featurette

What You'll Do

• Lead the creation, population, and management of complex crowd simulations using Houdini.
• Define the overall approach for crowd behaviour, agent systems, and shot execution across the show.
• Guide the development, optimisation, and maintenance of agent libraries, including animation clips, behaviour logic, and visual diversity.
• Oversee the design and implementation of believable background character performances that support story, staging, and composition.
• Ensure procedural animation techniques, motion cycles, and agent variation are utilised effectively for realism and efficiency.
• Review crowd setups at both individual shot and sequence levels to maintain visual continuity and technical consistency.
• Troubleshoot advanced simulation challenges — agent navigation, avoidance, pathing, behaviour trees, and blending issues.
• Work closely with Lighting and FX to ensure crowd elements render correctly, meet quality standards, and integrate seamlessly into final frames.
• Identify workflow bottlenecks and propose pipeline and tool improvements for better performance and scalability.

• Partner with Animation, Layout, CFX, Lighting, and FX to ensure crowd elements support artistic vision and meet technical requirements.
• Attend and lead crowd‑specific reviews, dailies, and planning meetings to align with creative direction and production priorities.
• Collaborate with the CG Supervisor and Production to forecast complexity, schedule needs, and resource planning for crowd‑heavy sequences.
• Work closely with Pipeline/TD teams to build or refine crowd tools, behaviours, debug utilities, and agent libraries.
• Provide mentorship, guidance, and technical support to crowd artists of all levels.
• Document workflows, maintain department standards, and ensure consistent naming, organisation, and caching practices across the team.

• Prioritise tasks for the crowd team and ensure timely delivery of high‑quality assets and simulations across multiple sequences.
• Communicate clearly with Production about progress, issues, dependencies, and any risks to delivery.
• Adapt to evolving creative notes and balance iteration speed with long‑term technical stability.
• Prepare organised scenes, readable networks, and clean handoffs for downstream departments.
• Facilitate efficient troubleshooting and maintain a calm, solution‑oriented approach during production peaks.

• Previous experience as a Crowd Lead or Supervisor in feature animation, TV, VFX, or real‑time productions.
• Extensive experience with Houdini Crowd and familiarity with tools such as Golaem, Massive, or proprietary systems.
• Experience leading small teams and providing feedback, task scoping, and technical direction.

• Strong understanding of animation principles, crowd behaviour, motion editing, and scene choreography.
• Advanced proficiency in node‑based procedural workflows.
• Solid understanding of simulation, caching, optimisation, and shot performance tuning.
• Experience with rendering workflows and troubleshooting render‑related crowd issues.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills; able to mentor, guide, and collaborate effectively across departments.
• Experience with Maya, Shot Grid, and pipeline collaboration tools is a plus.
• Scripting abilities (Python, VEX) are a strong asset for automating workflows and building tools.

• Demonstrate large‑scale or complex agent interactions.
• Show use of Houdini with shot breakdowns.
• Provide clear examples of behaviour logic, motion variation, clipping/cycle usage, and agent diversity.
• Include shots showing integration with environments, lighting, layout, and FX.
• Present problem‑solving examples, technical notes, or tool‑building contributions.
• Showcase any team‑lead responsibilities, such as direction and review notes or pipeline improvements.

Pay Range: $1,900 - $2,100 CAD per week

Flexible work environment, extended health and wellness coverage from day 1, and RRSP matching are among the benefits. For more details, visit our website.