Senior Motion Editor – ILM Vancouver

ILM (Vancouver) Inc. is hiring a Senior Motion Editor at their Coal Harbour studio in Vancouver, British Columbia. This role sits within the motion capture pipeline, focused on retargeting and editing body performances from mocap shoots and delivering polished, production-ready animation for high-end VFX feature film work. It suits an experienced motion capture animator who has worked across film VFX or AAA games and knows their way around a non-destructive editing workflow.

About the Role

The Senior Motion Editor works inside ILM’s mocap and animation department, processing actor performances captured on stage and refining them to meet the visual bar of feature film production. Day-to-day work involves retargeting motion data across character hierarchies, cleaning and enhancing performances, and blending animation clips into fluid, believable sequences. The role covers human and bipedal characters primarily, with quadruped work coming in as productions require.

Key Responsibilities

• Retarget motion data from one character hierarchy to another independently, maintaining performance integrity throughout the VFX pipeline.
• Edit and improve captured actor performances in a non-destructive manner, preserving the original intent while lifting quality to feature film standards.
• Adjust contact points and interactions between characters, props, and environment geometry to achieve accurate, grounded results.
• Add finger, toe, and tail animation and refine posture, gesture, and weight to enhance the believability of each performance.
• Build and blend animation clips using a thorough understanding of motion blending workflows to create natural transitions between distinct motion states.
• Mentor junior motion editors, sharing techniques, troubleshooting technical issues, and helping raise the overall quality standard of the team’s output.

What You Bring

• A degree in Computer Science, Computer Visualisation, or Computer Animation, or equivalent professional experience in motion capture animation.
• Proven credits in high-end film VFX or video game production, with an up-to-date showreel demonstrating motion capture work.
• Hands-on experience with MotionBuilder, Maya, Blender, or Nuance for editing and retargeting motion-captured performances.
• Working knowledge of Linux and Vicon Shogun Post within a professional VFX studio environment.
• A strong eye for motion, timing, and posture, backed by a solid understanding of core animation principles.

Why This Role

ILM is one of the most respected visual effects studios in the feature film industry, and this position places you inside their Vancouver operation working on productions at the top end of the VFX pipeline. The hybrid schedule allows for 2 to 3 days onsite at the Coal Harbour studio, with the remainder remote. For a Senior Motion Editor looking to work at a high volume and high quality level, the production slate and team calibre here are genuinely hard to match.

Apply now for the Senior Motion Editor role at ILM (Vancouver) Inc. and submit your current showreel alongside your application.