Lighting Supervisor

Brown Bag Films; Toronto; On-site; CAD 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

Brown Bag Films is seeking a CG Lighting Supervisor to lead and mentor the lighting team across productions. You will define lighting workflows, establish standards for real-time and traditional rendering, and collaborate with Directors and VFX teams to realise creative direction.

Arguably the ideal candidate brings deep CG lighting experience for animation or VFX, plus practical Unreal Engine and Sequencer skills, to deliver high-quality, consistent lighting across sequences.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of lighting, colour, composition and cinematic storytelling.
• Expert CG lighting and rendering workflows for animation or VFX.
• Understanding of how lighting affects shot lighting and rendering in the production pipeline.
• Experience defining and maintaining lighting templates and workflows.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine real-time lighting concepts is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Lead the lighting team creatively and technically, providing clear direction and feedback to ensure shots achieve required lighting quality and continuity.
• Define the lighting workflow for each production, including templates, rigs, sequence hierarchy and rendering standards.
• Establish and maintain lighting standards across real-time and traditional rendering workflows.
• Collaborate with Directors, CG/VFX Supervisors, Production and Pipeline teams to translate creative direction into practical lighting approaches.
• Line manage the lighting team, including mentoring, performance reviews and development of artists.

Skills

Artistic lighting & storytelling

CG lighting & rendering workflows

Lighting in CG pipeline

Lighting optimisation & performance

Unreal Engine real-time concepts

Tools

Maya/Arnold

V-Ray

Katana

Houdini/Solaris

Unreal Engine

Job description

At Brown Bag Films, our motto is simple: “We Love Animation™.” And we mean it — we put our artists at the heart of everything we do. As one of the most creatively driven animation studios, we are passionate about creating high-quality, engaging content for kids and families everywhere.

We are seeking a talented CG Lighting Supervisor to lead and mentor a lighting team creatively and technically and support the needs of the production.

Role: Lighting Supervisor

Reporting to: Head of Lighting, Rendering & FX

Purpose: Why you’re here at Brown Bag Films

• To lead the creative and technical delivery of lighting across assigned productions, ensuring the Director and Art Director’s creative direction is realised consistently within the agreed quality, schedule and production scope.
• To define and maintain the lighting approach and workflow for each production, including lighting templates, shot hierarchy, rendering standards and local shot edits, while continually improving the efficiency and capability of the lighting department.
• To lead and develop the lighting team through clear direction, feedback, mentoring and line management.

Delivery: What you produce

• High-quality lighting that supports the creative direction and visual style of each production.
• Show-standard lighting setups, rigs and reusable templates.
• A clear and production-friendly lighting workflow, including sequence and shot-level lighting structure.
• Efficient solutions to lighting, rendering and performance challenges.
• Lighting pipeline roadmaps covering workflow improvements, tools, technology and future department needs.
• A skilled and sustainable lighting team.

Measurements: How we measure it

• Lighting meets the required creative and technical quality within agreed schedules.
• Lighting setups and workflows are efficient, reliable and reusable across production.
• Consistent lighting quality and continuity across shots and sequences.
• Technical and workflow issues are identified early and resolved effectively.
• Team performance, development and sustainability.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the lighting team creatively and technically, providing clear direction and feedback to ensure shots and sequences achieve the required lighting quality and visual continuity.
• Define the lighting workflow for each production, including show lighting templates, light rigs, sequence and shot hierarchy, rendering approach and standards for local shot-level edits.
• For Unreal Engine productions, establish practical lighting workflows using tools such as Sequencer, Level and Sub-Sequences, reusable lighting setups and controlled shot-level overrides, ensuring artists can make local changes without unnecessarily breaking shared lighting setups.
• Work with the Studio VFX Supervisor, CG Supervisor, Directors and Art Directors to translate the approved creative direction into a practical lighting approach for production.
• Establish and maintain lighting standards across real-time and traditional rendering workflows, including appropriate use of global illumination, dynamic lighting and shadows, rendering quality, colour management and performance optimisation.
• Work closely with Pipeline Engineering and relevant technical teams to identify lighting and rendering bottlenecks, define requirements for tools and workflow improvements, test solutions and support their rollout into production.
• Maintain a roadmap for the lighting department covering pipeline improvements, workflow changes, automation, rendering technology and future production needs.
• Line manage the lighting team, including regular one-to-ones, feedback, performance reviews, mentoring, training and supporting the development of lighting artists and leads.
• Collaborate with Production Management on lighting schedules, staffing, priorities and delivery risks, escalating issues early where quality, schedule or workflow may be affected.
• Ensure lighting workflows are clearly documented and communicated so they can be applied consistently across productions, sites and external partners.
• Stay current with developments in CG and real-time lighting, assessing new techniques and technologies where they can improve creative quality, efficiency or production reliability.

Key Requirements

Knowledge

• Strong artistic understanding of lighting, colour, composition, cinematography and visual storytelling.
• Expert understanding of CG lighting and rendering workflows for animation or VFX production.
• Strong understanding of how lighting works within the wider CG production pipeline and how upstream decisions affect shot lighting and rendering.
• Good understanding of lighting optimisation, rendering performance and efficient production workflows.
• Familiarity with real-time lighting concepts and Unreal Engine workflows, including dynamic lighting, Sequencer and real-time rendering, is desirable but not essential.

Experience

• Extensive experience in CG lighting on completed television, feature animation or VFX productions, including experience as a Lighting Lead, Supervisor or equivalent senior role.
• Experience defining and maintaining lighting setups, templates and workflows across a production.
• Experience providing creative feedback and maintaining lighting continuity across shots and sequences.
• Experience leading, mentoring and developing lighting artists.
• Experience collaborating with Directors, Art Directors, CG/VFX Supervisors, Production and Pipeline teams.
• Experience working with distributed, outsource or partner teams is desirable.
• Experience working with Unreal Engine or another real-time production workflow is desirable.

Technical Skills

• Strong proficiency in at least one established CG lighting and rendering workflow such as Maya/Arnold, V-Ray, Katana, Houdini/Solaris or equivalent.
• Working knowledge of compositing and colour-management principles as they relate to lighting and final image delivery.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine lighting tools such as Lumen, dynamic lighting and shadowing, Sequencer and Movie Render workflows is desirable.
• Strong ability to diagnose lighting, rendering and performance problems and work with technical teams to develop practical solutions.
• Working knowledge of production tracking and asset management systems.
• Scripting or technical development experience is desirable but not essential.

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We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

The salary range for this role is $100,000 to $125,000 per year.

We consider several factors in determining salary offers including experience, skills, qualifications, and education. Our employees receive competitive perks including comprehensive benefits, paid vacation, and health & wellness days.

Applicants need to be legally eligible to work in Canada and have Ontario residency.

9 Story Media takes diversity and inclusion seriously and we are committed to ensuring equity in the recruitment process. Candidates from diverse backgrounds, including but not limited to, Indigenous peoples, Racialized and LGBT2SQ+ communities, candidates from a range of ages and religious beliefs and people with disabilities, are encouraged to apply.

As a company, we deliver high-quality kids' content, and we seek to have diverse characters so that all our audience feels represented. We also want the same for our own workforce, and 9 Story Media is committed to looking for all kinds of talent to build a diverse workforce in which all identities are represented and respected.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application and interview process to be successful in performing essential job functions. We’d love to know how we can support your requirements for accommodation.