Josh Aitken

Josh Aitken

Senior Technical Director / 12 yrs

South Western Ontario

Pipeline Technical Director

Magic: The Gathering (2023)

Lead Technical Director

Tee and Mo (2018)

Lead Technical Director

The Expanse (2015)

Leae Technical Director

Ollie the Boy Who Became What He Ate (2017)

Lead Technical Director

The Birds Sing Too Loud (2018)

Technical Director

Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments (2016)

Lead Technical Director

Frankie Drake Mysteries (2019)

Technical Director

Good Witch (2015)

Technical Director

Terrific Trucks (2016)

Ttechnical Director

Bibleman: The Animated Adventures (2016)

Make it better, faster, and easier to understand; these are the principles that have guided me through the majority of the positions I have held across various industries.

Working as the Lead Technical Director for a studio that has both animation and VFX departments, I dealt with fast turnarounds, and constantly shifting priorities and deadlines, often juggling both departments requirements. On the animation side, I designed animator friendly rigs and tools to make the animators' jobs as easy as possible. Removing unnecessary technical obstacles allowed the animators to concentrate on animating and producing the best work possible. For the VFX and Compositor teams, I rigged FX assets, wrote tools and designed pipelines to help them work with complex scenes to produce deliverables that made our clients happy and constantly returning to work with us.

My background as a Graphic Artist makes it easy to communicate with team members less technical than me, allowing me to explain my technical ideas in a way that they can understand. I can also take ideas from artistically inclined staff and translate them into technical terms that my fellow TDs better understand.

As a senior studio member, I considered it a privilege to pass on my knowledge to the younger staff. During downtime, I worked with less experienced TDs to help them with their coding and rigging, often finding that they can reciprocate the gift by teaching me new ways to look at things and reevaluate my own choices in how to tackle projects. I actively seek feedback and ideas from staff on ways to better improve efficiency in the studio, be it a new tool or a change to the way something is rigged for animation. Nothing is better than taking an idea an animator has, building it into a tool, and hearing them tell me it’s better than they imagined it could be. My job is to make sure everyone does the best work possible by making the technical and unnecessary work invisible.
Work History

  • System Tester

    TD

    2003 - 2004

    • Assisted in testing new systems for call center employees to make sure they were easy to use and secure.

    • Provided feedback to designers on regular bases on design and performance issues.

  • Game Tester

    Ubisoft Toronto

    September 2011 - April 2014
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    • Tested beta gameplay and features for in production games, providing feedback on quality of gameplay, UI/UX implementation, models and textures.

  • Production Sound Mixer / Camera Operator / Editor

    Freelance

    2001 - 2015

    Responsibilities included:

    • Recording location sound recording for independent film, web series and music videos.

    • Sound assistant/cable puller on larger productions.

    • Audio mixing for live music performances.

    • Post-production mixing of recorded tracks for final mix with visuals.

    • Camera Operator for small independent film and music video productions.

    • Editor of shorts, promos, music videos and dailies for various productions.

  • Technical Artist / Technical Advisor

    Apocalypse Studios Inc.

    January 2021 - April 2021

    • Created Studio tool launcher with industry standard and custom tools as needed for production as requested by art director and modellers.

    • Mentored and trained 3DS Max modellers on newest 3ds Max tools and industry procedures.

    • Assisted Lead TD in testing and deployment of new software, and assisted in training less technical staff in a more artist friendly manner.

    • Developed a robust naming and directory structure to work with Perforce that would allow users to easily and quickly identify assets based on studio designated taxonomy.

    • Advised Lead FX Artist on possible solutions for complicated VFX based upon years of experience working in feature quality film and television FX.

    • Advised camera programming team on real world camera settings and functions and how they should be expected to work in the in-development render engine as well as their proper terminology, helping to test results and providing feedback during live troubleshooting sessions.

    • Worked with the render programming team on testing and troubleshooting render quality issues, looking at various file formats and software solutions to implement into the pipeline.

    • Acted as the main technical point of contact between rendering, modelling, animation, vfx, lighting, and camera departments, answering technical questions to the best of my ability, or researching and reporting back as soon as possible to team members if I did not have the information readily available.

    • Stayed up to date on Max and Maya release notes, posting breakdowns in public company channels for staff and informing Max artists of the best path for version upgrade.

    • Researched tools and plugins for modelers and animators, providing links to artists for free trials for testing to see if they could improve efficiency or help complete tasks.

    • Maintained constant contact with COO to ensure they knew of any technical issues that were arising with teams I interacted with to allow them to make better informed decisions.

  • Lead Technical Director

    Keyframe Digital Productions Inc.

    April 2021 - August 2021

    • Returned to design, develop, and implement pipeline for 10 ep animated series based on previous pipeline built while working with studio previously; creating tools as needed to improve efficiency for small team.

    • Worked with lead animators and FX artist to provide assets to their required specifications, automating tasks as necessary to save them time.

    • Wrote technical documentation to assist staff in learning new tools and procedures, running training sessions when found appropriate.

    • Responsible for all asset rigging on production.

    • Assisted in model, texture and animation production as needed.

  • Technical Director

    Freelance

    November 2019 - November 2021

    • Developed tools to assist with pipeline automation and error reduction.

    • Rigged characters and assets for video games, films, and vfx.

  • Pipeline Technical Director

    Snowball Studios

    December 2021 - December 2022

    • Assisted in creating various pipeline augmentations, including ingest and export automation, as well as error checking and scene preparation modules.

    • Developed tools to assist with pipeline automation and error reduction.

  • Graphic Artist

    Dstinct

    2002 - Present

    Offering Pop Culture graphic design and art services, mostly in the comic book industry.

    Work has been published by Image Comics, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc, IDW, Hermes Press, Shadowline Press, Moonstone Books, Ape Entertainment, Arcana Press, Visalia Comics, Maneki Neko Books, and King Features.

    Other work can be found self-published through Comixology, Kickstarter, via artists' own websites, or sold at cons.

  • Pipeline Technical Director

    Industrial Light & Magic

    January 2023 - Present

  • Technical Director

    Krow VFX Inc

    September 2015 - April 2017

    • Created tools and pipeline methods to increase productivity and speed for both departments.

    • Shortly after starting, worked on multiple shows as sole TD because supervisor was confident in ability to perform and deliver with little supervision.

    • Corrected model topology when necessary, or remodeled assets when seemed appropriate.

    • Assisted in animation when necessary to meet deadlines or after asset corrections were made.

    • Rigged characters and assets for both animation and VFX departments.

  • Operations Analyst

    The Bradford Group

    2004 - 2007
    London, Canada Area

    • On personal time, created internal digital communication pipeline utilizing Microsoft Office, convincing the company to upgrade from dummy terminals to 386 systems. This saved thousands of dollars in annual correspondence shipping and copying costs and also reduced response wait time for employees and customers.

    • Wrote technical documentation and manuals to assist staff in learning new software and procedures, running training workshops when found appropriate.

    • Organized Canadian customer service letter library, increasing productivity and reducing wasted time creating custom correspondence letters.

    • Forecasted phone, email and web correspondence, as well as tracked employee holidays to ensure company staffing needs were met, as well as employee needs.

    • Monitored center traffic and adjusted phone, email and letter teams as required by volume.

  • Freelance Editor

    Zeros 2 Heroes Media

    2007 - 2009

    • Assessed potential talent and recruited those considered to be an asset to the company.

    • Tested new pipeline for comic creation that used an ftp database system with an Adobe Flash visual interface, noting issues for development team to repair/redesign.

    • Mentored new talent unfamiliar with creating comics, teaching them proper working methods in order to ensure final product met industry standards and arrived by deadline.

    • Edited pitches and ideas into cross-marketable comic properties under the guidance of Paul Dini.

  • Technical Specialist

    STAPLES Canada

    2008 - 2011
    London, Ontario Canada

    • Repaired, cleaned, maintained and upgraded laptop and desktop computers.

    • Formatted and duplicated recorded media of customers.

    • Determined needs of customers and provided appropriate technological solutions to meet them.

    • Maintained up to date knowledge of technological advances and products to provide customers with up to date information.

    • Participated in vendor feedback and training sessions.

    • Provided graphic design work for select customers in copy center.

    • Maintained copy machines when necessary.

  • Lead Technical Director

    Keyframe Digital Productions Inc.

    March 2017 - October 2019
    St. Catharines, Canada

    • Collaborated with other department leads to assess methods of increasing speed and efficiency in their department’s workflows; creating tools and changing our department deliverables if possible.

    • Trained junior technical directors to enhance rigging and Maxscript skill sets.

    • Triaged rigging and coding tasks, completing advanced work myself and passing appropriate tasks to team members suited to complete them.

    • Wrote technical documentation to assist staff in learning new tools and procedures, running training sessions when found appropriate.

  • Lead Technical Director

    Krow VFX

    March 2017 - October 2019
    St. Catharines, Canada

    • Collaborated with other department leads to assess methods of increasing speed and efficiency in their department’s workflows; creating tools and changing our department deliverables if possible.

    • Trained junior technical directors to enhance rigging and Maxscript skill sets.

    • Triaged rigging and coding tasks, completing advanced work myself and passing appropriate tasks to team members suited to complete them.

    • Wrote technical documentation to assist staff in learning new tools and procedures, running training sessions when found appropriate.

  • Technical Director

    Keyframe Digital Productions Inc.

    September 2015 - March 2017
    St. Catharines, Ontario

    • Rigged characters and assets for both animation and VFX departments.

    • Created tools and pipeline methods to increase productivity and speed for both departments.

    • Shortly after starting, worked on multiple shows as sole TD because supervisor was confident in ability to perform and deliver with little supervision.

  • Technical Artist

    Self

    May 2012 - August 2015
    London, Canada

    • Asset modeling for small indy game studios and animation projects.

    • rigged assets.

    • developed tools and scripts to assist productions as necessary.

View All Positions
Education

  • Certificate of Completion

    Technical Director Transformation

    June 2014 - December 2014

  • Advanced Diploma - 3D Animation, Art and Design (Honors)

    Humber College

    September 2011 - April 2014

  • Film / Television / Radio Production

    Lambton College

    2002 - 2002