Hybrid Lighting Technical Director VFX

Job Position(s): Hybrid Lighting Technical Director VFX

Industrial Light & Magic is hiring a Hybrid Lighting Technical Director VFX based in London, England, UK. This role sits within the lighting department and is responsible for translating creative direction into finished CG lighting and rendering output across feature film and high-end VFX productions. It suits an experienced lighting TD who is comfortable working across complex VFX pipelines and delivering at the standard ILM projects demand.

About the Role

The lighting department at Industrial Light & Magic works across some of the most technically demanding VFX productions in the industry, and this TD position sits at the intersection of artistic interpretation and technical execution. Day to day, the role involves building and refining CG lighting setups, working closely with compositors and look development artists to ensure shots meet the approved look. The hybrid structure requires two days per week on-site at the London facility, with the remainder worked remotely.

Key Responsibilities

• Produce final-quality CG lighting and rendering for assigned shots across the VFX pipeline, meeting both creative and technical brief.
• Interpret creative direction from supervisors and translate it into lighting setups that serve the specific visual language of each production.
• Work within Katana to build and manage lighting scenes, ensuring consistency across sequences and shot batches.
• Render using Renderman, troubleshooting technical issues and optimising settings to balance quality against production schedules.
• Integrate with compositing teams via Nuke, reviewing how lighting output reads in comp and making targeted adjustments to support the final image.
• Write and maintain Python and MEL scripts to support lighting workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and contribute to pipeline efficiency.

What You Bring

• Demonstrable experience as a lighting TD across feature film production or high-end episodic television VFX work.
• Proficiency in Katana and Renderman as primary tools within a production lighting pipeline.
• Working knowledge of Nuke sufficient to review and inform compositing decisions from the lighting stage.
• Python and MEL scripting ability applied in a real post-production workflow context.
• A reel or credits that show strong CG lighting work across varied shot types and environments.

Why This Role

Industrial Light & Magic has defined the standard for VFX production for decades, and the London facility works across major studio productions with significant scope and technical complexity. For a Hybrid Lighting Technical Director VFX, this represents access to a level of production scale and pipeline sophistication that very few studios can offer. The hybrid model also provides genuine flexibility without stepping away from an on-site team culture that matters at this level.

Apply now for the Hybrid Lighting Technical Director VFX role at Industrial Light & Magic and take the next step in your VFX lighting career.