Head of 2D – Los Angeles

The Head of 2D is a leadership role within the LA office that combines technical, creative, managerial and mentorship duties. This role is responsible for leading a team of compositors across both Nuke and Flame ensuring best practices are established and maintained across all projects from initial concept through to final delivery. The primary goal is to work with other department heads to establish workflows and efficiencies that elicit high end quality results.

The Head of 2D will be heavily involved in the strategic planning of the artist team, identifying and hiring new talent and ensuring that Framestore’s 2D team in LA is of the highest standard possible and working as a coherent and energized team. Concurrently, the Head of 2D will be actively involved with the Head of Production, Scheduling and Resource Manager, and Talent Manager to ensure project assignments fit with current artist skills sets with a vision for greater career development.

Working with the Managing Director, the Head of 2D will have awareness of the divisional finances on a quarterly basis, and take a share in setting salaries at budget time with a pragmatic approach to the business requirements alongside artistic requirements.

The Head of 2D will also be actively working on projects in a leadership role, overseeing progress and offering guidance and support both technically and creatively, taking on a compositing role for complex shots or sequences.

Responsibilities:

• Manage and mentor all LA based compositors.
• Act as Compositor on projects as required, delivering to a high level of complexity to a finished standard.
• Work closely with the Scheduling and Resource Manager and Talent Manager to ensure that compositors are scheduled on the projects that match their skills and interests, as well as meeting the needs of the project.
• Strategize with the scheduling team on compositing crewing decisions during all stages of the project cycle to ensure full utilization of the team’s skill set.
• Be the go to person for all compositors when considering longer term career plans and goals, with follow through to ensure artists are given the opportunities they need to remain focused, inspired, and progressive in their skill sets and development; with a goal for high retention in the department.
• Conduct annual reviews for all members of the compositing team. Provide advice and individual mentoring for any compositors as required.
• Involvement with all projects and their compositing needs and when required, problem solving issues in compositing that are related to team or an individual compositing issue.
• Work with the Recruitment Manager on recruitment of all Compositing Artists, from junior through to senior, including ad hoc interviews with potential Compositors for both freelance and staff roles. Also keeping active with passive recruitment with an eye for talent who might be good to approach for Framestore in the future, for either the LA office or across the Global network. This includes attending recruitment events as schedules allow.
• Oversee, with the support of trusted senior artists, the daily running and managing of our 2D internship program; with the aim of offering a challenging and educational program that will elicit the best junior talent to grow in the business.
• Own responsibility for identifying training needs of the compositing team, planning and arranging the training with the talent team.
• Maintain a close relationship with all Creative Directors in the division, with the common goal of keeping the quality of compositing to the highest standard possible, and in order to understand their individual project’s needs.
• Solve any difficult technical and artistic compositing challenges.
• Keep up close communication with all Heads of Departments across Framestore’s global network to maintain a unified approach to department progression and offer support as unique challenges arise.
• Active member of the 2D (Nuke and Flame) board meeting.
• Work with Production and Creative Directors to bid, pitch, and win, and efficiently plan new projects if requested.
• On-set VFX Supervision, as requested
• Manage clients from a creative standpoint, as needed.

Required Skills:

• Recognition as a highly skilled and respected Compositing Supervisor, with at least 10-15 years of industry experience across a wide variety of projects; commercials, features, episodic and an interest and passion for immersive and location based projects.
• In depth understanding and hands on experience in Nuke – Flame ideally as well.
• Genuine interest in career development of compositors, with a passion for building the best compositing team in the business.
• Strong project planning and problem solving skills.
• Approachable and friendly, with solid management skills.
• Ability to bring the best out of artists, and work to improve compositors if they are under-performing.
• Collaborative approach to problem solving, bringing both project leaders and team members along with your decisions.
• A commitment to the global nature of the company

Framestore is proud to employ extraordinary talent across all genders, races, nationalities, religions, ages, abilities and sexual preferences. We aim to encourage and support all of our current and future employees to achieve their potential. No job applicant will receive less favorable treatment on any basis when applying for a career with us.