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Technical Directors - Research & Development (1, 2, Sr.) job

Posted: February 08, 2007
CG JOBS
subject: Technical Directors - Research & Development (1, 2, Sr.) , Laika Inc.

Laika Inc. is looking for Technical Directors - Research & Development (1, 2, Sr.)
duration - Indefinite

Job details: Award winning animation studio, LAIKA Inc, based in Portland Oregon and owned by Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman of Nike are seeking Research & Development Technical Directors for its Feature Animation Division.



LAIKA/entertainment is currently in production on several animated feature films including: Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" , written for the screen and directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and The Giant Peach); and "Jack & Ben", written and directed by Jorgen Klubien (Cars, Monsters Inc, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid). The company recently purchased the rights to one of the U.K.'s current best-selling children's novels, writer/illustrator Alan Snow's "Here Be Monsters". LAIKA/house is a dynamic community of filmmakers, designers and animators guided by a legacy of 30 years of animation history. Notorious for its skills in storytelling and character performance, LAIKA/house produces every type of animation in every medium.



The Research & Development TD bridges the gap between art and technology. Their primary responsibility is to create and improve efficient, artist-friendly, production workflows. By designing, implementing and teaching better ways of working, the R&D; TD empowers an entire team of production artists to get up to work efficiently. As a technical problem-solver, the R&D; TD may be called on to participate in design work, at least peripherally, across the breadth of the entire pipeline. Although the main focus of the R&D; TD is on strategic, reusable workflow development, they may periodically participate directly in production projects.



Principal Duties and Responsibilities

- Design, prototype and implement artist-centric production tools.

- Specify the artist requirements for tools to be developed by other R&D; departments, and integrate them into production workflows.

- Work with the documentation and training groups to develop source materials.

- Help production staff understand best usage of production tools and workflows.

- Troubleshoot production problems, and proactively work to minimize their impact.

- Work with production staff to analyze workflows for areas that may benefit from further design work.

- Design and execute project work plans to produce known deliverables on a pre-determined timetable.

- Proactively seek new technologies, techniques, and processes that will benefit facility production techniques.

- Present new ideas, work and technology to educate and inform others in the company



Minimum Qualifications and Abilities:

- 3 + years of Feature Film (CG) experience

- Strong communication skills

- Bachelor's degree or equivalent education/experience.

- Demonstrated knowledge and experience working with several of our production applications: Maya, Houdini, Shake, MTOR, prman or equivalents.

- Experience working on some flavor of a UNIX platform, preferably Linux

- Experience scripting in Perl or Python

- A background in Computer Science, Engineering, Art or equivalent job experience

- Ability to manage time according to current priorities in an efficient manner

- Ability to balance short-term production needs with long-term strategic development

- Ability to work in a self directed manner, and be adaptable to change



Preferred Abilities and Knowledge:

- 5 + years of Feature Film (CG) Experience

- Experience with Qt or PyQt

- Experience in C/C++ or some other object-oriented programming language

- Experience with subversion, cvs or another revision control system

- Experience designing user interfaces



There are several research & Development Positions open, to apply go to

http://apps.laika.com/jobs/detail/108
http://apps.laika.com/jobs/detail/109
http://apps.laika.com/jobs/detail/110



For additional employment opportunities please visit www.laika.com
Location: Portland, Oregon, United States
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