Crowd Supervisor - Houdini (TV Featurette)
OUR STORY
For more than 35 years, Bardel Entertainment has been growing and evolving, yet at our core, we remain grounded in the creative roots of the craft of animation. Our pursuit of fresh ideas, techniques, and technologies is driven by the belief that together, through creativity and collaboration, we can accomplish anything! If you want to be part of an environment that empowers you to experiment, learn, and contribute to exciting projects, come and join us.
What You’ll Do
Core Responsibilities
Lead the creation, population, and management of complex crowd simulations using Houdini. Define the overall approach for crowd behavior, agent systems, and shot execution across the show. Guide the development, optimization, and maintenance of agent libraries, including animation clips, behavior logic, and visual diversity. Oversee the design and implementation of believable background character performances that support story, staging, and composition. Ensure procedural animation techniques, motion cycles, and agent variation are utilized effectively for realism and efficiency. Review crowd setups at both individual shot and sequence levels to maintain visual continuity and technical consistency. Troubleshoot advanced simulation challenges—including agent navigation, avoidance, pathing, behavior trees, and blending issues. Work closely with Lighting and FX to ensure crowd elements render correctly, meet quality standards, and integrate seamlessly into final frames. Identify workflow bottlenecks and propose pipeline and tool improvements for better performance and scalability.
Collaboration & Workflow
Partner with Animation, Layout, CFX, Lighting, and FX to ensure crowd elements support artistic vision and meet technical requirements. Attend and lead crowd-specific reviews, dailies, and planning meetings to align with creative direction and production priorities. Collaborate with the CG Supervisor and Production to forecast complexity, schedule needs, and resource planning for crowd‑heavy sequences. Work closely with Pipeline/TD teams to build or refine crowd tools, behaviors, debug utilities, and agent libraries. Provide mentorship, guidance, and technical support to crowd artists of all levels. Document workflows, maintain department standards, and ensure consistent naming, organization, and caching practices across the team.
Time Management & Communication
Prioritize tasks for the crowd team and ensure timely delivery of high‑quality assets and simulations across multiple sequences. Communicate clearly with Production about progress, issues, dependencies, and any risks to delivery. Adapt to evolving creative notes and balance iteration speed with long‑term technical stability. Prepare organized scenes, readable networks, and clean handoffs for downstream departments. Facilitate efficient troubleshooting and maintain a calm, solution‑oriented approach during production peaks.
What You’ll Bring
Experience
Previous experience as a Crowd Lead or Supervisor in feature animation, TV, VFX, or real‑time productions. Extensive experience with Houdini Crowd, and familiarity with tools such as Golaem, Massive, or proprietary systems. Experience leading small teams and providing feedback, task scoping, and technical direction.
Skills & Communication
Strong understanding of animation principles, crowd behavior, motion editing, and scene choreography. Advanced proficiency in node‑based procedural workflows. Solid understanding of simulation, caching, optimization, and shot performance tuning. Experience with rendering workflows and troubleshooting render‑related crowd issues. Excellent communication and leadership skills; able to mentor, guide, and collaborate effectively across departments. Experience with Maya, ShotGrid, and pipeline collaboration tools is a plus. Scripting abilities (Python, VEX) are a strong asset for automating workflows and building tools.
Portfolio Requirements
A portfolio or demo reel that demonstrates: Crowd simulations featuring large‑scale or complex agent interactions. Use of Houdini with shot breakdowns included. Clear examples of behavior logic, motion variation, clipping/cycle usage, and agent diversity. Shots showing integration with environments, lighting, layout, and FX. Problem‑solving examples, technical notes, or tool‑building contributions. Any team‑lead responsibilities (if applicable): direction, review notes, pipeline improvements.