Character and Facial Animation Consultant | $60-$90/hr Remote
Overview
An AI lab developing a performance transfer model is bringing in senior character animators to define what faithful acting capture looks like. The model carries an actor's timing, emotional beats, and subtle physical choices into a new output, and your evaluations will judge how well it preserves the original. You will critique the current scoring approach, set quality criteria, and help select the human reviewers who rate outputs. The role is a part-time W-2 position through Cincinnatus LLC, with occasional in-person sessions in Playa Vista or New York.
What You'll Do4
- 1Define explicit quality criteria for successful performance transfer, covering both emotional resonance and physical fidelity, and identify where current evaluations miss the mark.
- 2Build a benchmark set of performance clips, ranging from easy-to-capture takes to deliberately hard ones that stress the model's limits.
- 3Design the reviewer profile and scoring rubric used by the human evaluation pool, specifying the mix of expertise needed for consistent ratings.
- 4Collaborate with other animation experts to align standards and keep evaluations accurate across the team.
Requirements8
- 14+ years of hands-on character animation work with a focus on human or character performance.
- 2Verifiable credits on at least 2 feature films, animated features, or AAA game cinematics from recognized studios.
- 3Direct experience with facial animation or performance capture, including facial keyframe work, mocap solving, cleanup, motion editing, or facial and performance rig design.
- 4A trained eye for micro-expressions, emotional beats, and the subtle physical details that make a performance feel authentic.
- 5Familiarity with AI tools and workflows, including the ability to generate your own visual samples for testing and comparison.
- 6The ability to translate visual nuance into clear, precise language for data captions and evaluation templates.
- 7Availability to attend in-person working sessions in Playa Vista, CA or New York, NY once or twice per month.
- 8Optional: dependable access to a 4K monitor for pixel-level review.
Who Should Apply
The ideal candidate is a character animator whose reel centers on human performance and facial emotion, not a generalist 3D artist. You should have shipped multiple feature films or AAA cinematics and be comfortable critiquing both the art and the scoring process. This role is not for cinematographers, lighting artists, colorists, editors, or VFX generalists; layout, previs, environment, and effects work won't qualify on their own. Common reasons candidates get rejected include lacking verifiable credits on recognized projects or having only general animation experience without a dedicated performance or facial focus. Another common miss is coming in without hands-on AI familiarity, since the role expects you to generate and compare visual samples.
Salary Insight
The rate is $60-$90 per hour, which sits at the senior end for character animation consulting and matches the 4+ years of production experience plus feature or AAA credits. The engagement is part-time and W-2 through Cincinnatus, so the hourly amount is the base and benefits and schedule are handled separately.
Location
Required Skills
Application Tip
In your application, pick one facial animation or performance capture shot you delivered and describe exactly how you preserved the actor's emotional intent during cleanup or keyframe work. Include the project name and your specific role to make the verifiable credits requirement easy to check.
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