Who’s Training the Next Generation?
Thoughts
Who’s Training the Next Generation? Why It Matters More Than Ever
Published
June 2026
Read
7 mins
What we keep hearing
We’ve had several conversations with industry folk recently about a widening gap: the number of talent entering motion design versus the number who actually land work. As our field grows denser, how does talent actually get in?
To be clear, this is an internal issue we felt we needed to confront openly. Motion designers with enough experience to keep getting work, live in a completely different world to those coming up the ladder behind us. But this is an issue that transcends all levels of the industry.
Kerry Oamen [London, UK] - 3D Showreel
The Slow Crisis
The old method was simple: bring an entry-level in, let them learn on the job, help out bit by bit and hopefully they'd absorb how a company works and provide long-term value through that investment. But between budget squeezes and AI absorbing exactly the tasks juniors used to learn on, those opportunities have thinned out.
And yet nobody decided to stop developing talent. The economics of an internship eroded, and nothing replaced them. Studios tend to respond rationally to incentives.
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Livio Chen [London, UK] - Showreel 2026
Already in the Post
This creates a conundrum, because the talent pipeline runs on a three-to-five year lag. The juniors nobody trains today are the mid-levels nobody can hire in 2029 and beyond. That shortage is already in the post.
And the damage is invisible while it's being done. A studio that stopped hiring juniors isn't missing anything today, their mid-levels are fine, hired years ago. The real pain arrives when those mid-levels go senior, go freelance, or leave, and there's nobody behind them.
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Anastasia Kochetkova [Rome, Italy] - Showreel
Every senior freelancer, creative director or ‘head-of’ reading this was someone’s risky junior hire.
AI Can’t Fast-track a Senior
AI raised the floor, but it didn't have a hand in creating seniors. What once took two juniors, a mid-level with today's tools does in half the time, compared to what makes someone mid-to-senior is everything in between; dissecting a brief and knowing how to creatively execute it, working with a team, understanding what a creative director and team actually needs, even knowing how agencies function.
Taste, client instincts and systems thinking still only come from reps, are we automating away the work people used to rep on?
Every senior freelancer, creative director or head-of reading this was someone's risky junior hire. Rates will rise as mid-level supply thins, good for us, short-term. If you look further out, there's a talent shortage coming that's entirely avoidable.
Mimo [Paris, France] - Showreel
What follows speaks to both sides, studios and those trying to get in, because this is one problem with two doors into it. If you're trying to break in: read the studio part anyway, because understanding the bind their in. If you run a studio: read the entry-level part, because it'll remind you what it costs to be on the outside of an industry you love.
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Jasmine Gunarto [New York, US] - Reel
“But We're Stretched Thin”
Let's name the objection now, because every studio lead is already thinking it: we’d love to, but we don't have the bandwidth. A junior isn’t just a hire, someone has to look after and train them.
That’s legitimate. Mentoring is real work that lands on someone specific, usually a mid or senior already at capacity. The first month of any junior is negative productivity. Anyone who pretends otherwise hasn't supervised one. But there are a few things are worth saying back.
The cost is front-loaded and the return compounds. By month three, a decent junior is taking real work off the team. By year two, they're the mid-level you’d otherwise pay a recruiter thousands to find, except this one already knows your pipeline, your clients, your file naming.
They give you a flex layer, someone to absorb overflow when three projects land at once, without committing to another senior salary or scrambling for a freelancer at short notice. For small studios especially, that buffer is important.
Lastly, and this might be an uncomfortable one: some of that stretched-thin feeling is the symptom. Who's doing the versioning, the asset prep, the cutdowns at your studio right now? Mids and seniors, at mid and senior cost, with mid and senior boredom.
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John Aponte Barriera [New York, US] - From Motion Playground
Stay in the Conversation
This is a big ask, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise, but it's worth the conversation. We know the climate, budgets are tight, there've been layoffs and freezes, and the person who sees the talent problem most clearly often isn't the one holding the keys to the kingdom. So this isn't a push to go and hire someone tomorrow.
It's something much more doable; stay in the conversation. Even when hiring's frozen, the one thing you can always do is keep looking at the people coming up.
An hour a month, a handful of portfolios, a proper look, not to fill a role, but to stay connected to the talent coming through. It costs almost nothing, asks nothing of a stretched team, and does the thing that matters most; you're not a stranger to the next generation, and they're not strangers to you.
So when the moment turns (and it will) you're not starting from a cold inbox. You're reaching for someone you already know.
And done with even a little structure, it's one of the most useful hours a studio can spend.
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Soumi Issa [London, UK] - Showreel
It's worth remembering what new people bring while they're still new.
A junior or entry level person hasn’t yet learned what's ‘impossible’, so they'll happily ask the the questions most have forgot to ask.
They're close to the tools and trends shifting under all of us, often fluent in the platform or technique that's everywhere on their feed and only just reaching the rest of us. And because they haven't absorbed the house style yet, they tend to notice when it's gone a little stale.
Every studio drifts toward its own defaults over time. fresh eyes are one of the simplest ways to stay not just current but unique. Bringing someone up isn't only about building the next generation, done well, it keeps you sharp too.
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The gap between you and the job isn't mostly craft. Courses, tutorials and YouTube have made technically strong juniors/entry levels more common than ever. What they can’t teach is everything around the craft.
The Gap Nobody Talks About
To everyone trying to break in, whether you're a fresh graduate, self-taught, or crossing over from another field this part is for you. We're going to be straight with you, because most people don't have the time or energy to be.
The tricky part though is that it's hard to see your own gap from the inside. You can't always tell whether you need more reps, a sharper reel, or simply for the right person to notice you. From where you're sitting it all blurs into one feeling ‘it's not working yet’, and that feeling doesn't tell you what to fix. So you end up guessing.
You polish the reel again when the reel was fine, send more emails when the work wasn't ready, or even wait to be noticed when there's still something in your control.
None of that means you're behind, or not good enough.
It usually just means you haven't figured out which part is actually the problem, and almost nobody helps you do that.
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Hazel /Jiehuizi Wang [London, UK], - Showreel
Where This Goes
To make starting easier, we've put two things together:
For grads, self-taught of those crossing over
‘A Practical Guide to Standing Out’: a guide on how to give yourself some perspective to help you on your journey.
To read: Click here
For studios
Even when you're ready to bring someone in, the real problem isn't always finding people. It's that you're buried in portfolios and reels, and you've no time to work out which ones are actually good. The strong ones get missed simply because no one had a spare hour to look properly.
That's the part we do and are planning to develop further. we spend time looking at the work and pointing you to the few worth your attention. When you're ready, whether it's a crit, a shadow, or a real hire, we'll have already done the part you don't have time for.
Talk to us: info@brandsinmotion.xyz
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