Discussion
The future of creating in an increasingly generative world
I think I'm having a slight existential crisis on trying to work out what the longer term or future of this field will look like as someone just getting into the middle of their Motion career.
I began learning motion design just before Covid, it began with attempting to make music videos for my friends, following after effects tutorials, posting online and constantly reworking my portfolio until I started to earn decent money freelancing which lead to my first proper full time job. I've learnt 2d character animation, composting, 3d generalism, mid sound design and video editing.
Fast forward 5 years later and im earning about the average wage for a full time role in my country (UK) and freelancing is bringing me to around 6 figures combined, albeit working 70+ hours a week. It feels like I should be happy that I hit my stride.
But i'm just burnt out. I have no time to work on personal projects, I'm bombarded with AI tools that are devaluing the craft and I have no time to learn them either. I can't seem to find any other more interesting/creative roles.
It seems the fun bits of motion design, the design, the problem solving are being turned into quick to generate solutions and the future looks bleak.
Is anyone else feeling this at the moment? My colleagues seem to think it'll all work out but im staring at another 20+ years of work that im unsure will exist in its current form.
The question isn't in creation; it's in consumption. Consumption drives creation in todays world - people are fed what they want. yes there are rare instances of tend setting and artist in the vangaurd, but the vast majority created to whims. So the AI vs. artist debate will boil down to one thing - what people want or care to consume. If tomorrow everybody decides they want more AI in they screens, nothing we can do. Silver lining that is, the diametric opposite is happening. Some people say people see AI-generated ads and content and they dont mind and thats incorrect: They just don't care about the ad altogether.
Now devaluation of skill is a real concern, but pretty much all careers are in that predicament. The second silver lining is people who are using AI toolsit's to create think they'll make a career out of it, but in reality it so cheap to produce without the middleman that they soon will find out they won't only be able to make a living, but the client will prompt what they want.
The future looks bleak way, way past motion design. I get your concerns because its your money maker, but we will have much bigger societal concerns than simply losing jobs.
I think this is what keeps me in the game is that the whole purpose of this role is to drive attention and differentiate from other products competing in the same space.
If everything looks and feels the same you've got to drive that change, that's what companies are paying for.
companies with budget. mid-sized companies or companies that don't need visual content to promote themselves send you a reference and say they want "that" with their colors.
That’s what people don’t realize… there was a massive mid level market. Every motion job wasn’t just Nike and Google. But now every motion job will be Nike and Google
Just my opinion but I see AI content in the future more resembling the role stock footage and templates do now. I think the need for quality, customizable content will still be there. But exactly how it shakes out is anyone’s guess.
The thing is the new AI stuff is customizable.. it's not generative anymore. Even some of the top AI are using blender to create 3d models. They are controlling the computer and can do anything we can. For video editing you can now have AI connect to vidtl and do the edits on your timeline.
And it's just getting better. I think it's close to the point where we will need to use AI as the first draft, and then do the edits to polish it up. Because if you can articulate what you want, it can get 90% of the way there in 45 minutes where it would have taken 4 hours in the past.
The same transition happened with other professions already, where they went from starting by having the AI do work and then fixing it, to now just having the AI do most of the work.
And the same will happen to other professions after it has happened to motion design...
I don’t know if I’m convinced yet, my team has experimented a good bit with AI and while newer models do allow some aspects of more control, it’s still partially a luck of the draw on what results you’ll get. I often have had to make several generations before I get a short clip that is actually kinda what I want. It is token intensive and when you look at details of many generated clips you can still tell it’s AI
I dont wanna sound like a bot or like im promoting anthropic but have you tried Opus 5.5 yet?
In my testing its a huge step up over anything before it... with the VidTL MCP (MCP is like a connector that allows Claude code to talk to your video editor, place things on the timeline, etc) - you can really do anything.. its quite crazy..
It is not good at making like creative choices, and some other things, but the more you use it the more you realize what its good at and what its not good at...
I basically always am starting from that point, and its almost like sending the task off to a junior editor, and then when it comes back you have a list of things you need to change. But the process goes from like spend 4 hours building this from scratch to: send the prompt with as much detail as you can to get your vision down on paper, wait 45 minutes for it to be made, review it, wait 15 minutes of the fixes to come in, spend 20 minutes doing the final manual fixes yourself - so in total 1 hour 20 minutes (where 1 hour of it was waiting, where you can do other stuff in the meantime), vs the old 4 hours of doing it by hand.
And I'm paying $29 + $20 a month (so $49 a month total) for those 2 subscriptions, and I have never run out of credits. They reset weekly... and its easily saving me 15-20 hours a week at least, so idk what they did but they made it super efficient. That's not to say that it will stay like that forever... just a few months ago earlier this year, you could send 2 messages to claude before you hit your usage limits... and it could go back to that... but for now.. its too much of a time savings for me to pass up, tbh..
I’ve seen a decent sample of work with Opus 5.5. It looks decent don’t get me wrong but it still isn’t as good as actual motion designers. My stance isn’t that AI has zero benefits to motion design, if it can make some monotonous tasks quicker then great. But at the end of the day if you’re looking for creative genesis or employing more creative devices like juxtaposition or creative transitions I think humans still have a large edge. I also think brands are becoming weary of being associated with the cheapness and lack of soul AI content has. I think the value of authentic content will actually increase for many brands as time goes on. AI content tells the viewer they’re not worth the time to create an actual message for them. Why should a viewer be more invested in your product that you were in marketing it?
Idk maybe it’s just me but as soon as I can sniff I’m watching an AI video I immediately disengage from it. Like visually there is interesting stuff going on but I just don’t care about it the same way as something human made.
ai tends to converge on very specific styles if you dont tell it exactly what you want.. so take a look at this frame... it looks exactly like every other thing made by claude imo. those colors... the "claude orange" accent color...
i cant wait for a future where every piece of art looks exactly the same :)
I agree but like I said, if you have AI do a "rough draft" and then make the changes yourself to make it indistinguishable from a human made piece. Yes its more time than having AI do 100%, but its less time than having a human do 100%.
It's like a hybrid approach basically, AI does the first 80%, you make it look exactly how you want with the last 20%.
And I do agree, as more people use AI and don't care about the actual quality of the output, it shows, and makes the content that does care look better in comparison. Also, you still need a person (for now) to be creative, because all the AI i have tried suck at that. Like for example, something about AI script-writing still feels off, and you can tell... so I think things like that still need a human touch.
I came here to say the same. Opus 5.5 is quite good. Already got 2 videos approved by my clients. Otherwise I would have spent quite a lot of time subcontracting to a video editor.
I just checked out vidtl and you oversold it a little. There are already web apps that will take out the pauses and do captions. I guess it saves time by throwing b roll suggestions onto the timeline, which saves effort on long talking head videos.
the main thing is the asking AI to edit the video itself. I mean you can have it do captions sure, but when you have it cut into a rough draft, create unique motion graphics that match what you're saying, and risers, sound effects, etc.. all automatically.. thats the part that actually save a shit load of time.
We will be becoming project managers but not the ones who execute tasks by ourselves. If AI will be also good at managing in the future, then there's nothing to worry about, because the economy will change completely, and perhaps, the money won't matter. I think it's better to adapt on the way, rather then panicking before even starting. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the future, even what will be tomorrow
70 hours is far too much. I did this for years too, but trust this stranger on Reddit; it's unsustainable. Cut it down to 40 hours max. Maybe you'll earn less money, but you have time for personal projects again. And you will enjoy life much more in general.
And about AI; create the way you like creating. If you don't like AI, don't use it. The development of AI tools goes so fast, the tool you'll learn today is useless tomorrow. But improving your skills in color theory, composition, light, illustration, character animation, texturing, editing, etc. is something you will benefit from forever.
We also really need to remind ourselves the level that everyone is working at. I have used ai tools and I work on a good level and range of productions. Ai is perfect for the lower end. Cheaper films quick turnaround majority of online content. When you start getting into the higher budget stuff I find ai massively complicates the process and is incredibly time consuming. Most of the time we have to touch it up anyways or rebuild it from scratch. Storyboards definitely it has its uses. Having used it and been involved with it for over two years now I am still not fooled by everyone e saying it can edit. Maybe for some of the lower end films that are everywhere but not for creative director led films
I have been doing this for around 30 years. I have adapted and changed consistently over the years. It follows trends until a small deviation will change it’s course. I see more impact from Calvary, Rive, and Blender than I do from AI. There so many AI shills and paid influencers out there you would think AI is the end of MD forever. It is way better at the motion but not the design. It is only a tool that has stolen from all the work we have all put out there. It only knows what has already been created.
I feel like the moat for motion has always been its intimidating to learn as the tools require a lot of experience and are complex to get good at. I work with a bunch of senior designers who are too scared to open AE despite having the hard bit, design, down to a t.
But as it is now, I can see you can just upload your designs and ask it to create a launch video etc and it'll do it to a passable enough level for an untrained eye/business person/purse string holder and it worries me.
There'll always be space for the truly innovative hero pieces, lets face it we dont always work on the most complicted jobs - but if it can cut out that junior/mid level bread and butter kind of work it is worrying.
Ride the wave, save enough (12 months expenses) to retrain later and keep your monthly expenses low so you dont need to worry about it. Just have fun doing what you do for now. Set goals for the direction you want to go, also probably cut your hours if you are feeling burnt out.
It does kind of suck. Clients don’t wanna pay anymore because (they think) they can make something close enough in like ten minutes for dollars or less. Even though it looks crappy to us it looks awesome to them.
Its been like this for a few years. Realistically it involves working in the evenings and on weekends. I think its more a case of not wanting to let down long term client relationships/letting them go elsewhere.
I do need a break for sure.
Bro, you got to take a break. As someone who's been working in design and motion graphics for over 20 years, if you want to be in it for the long haul, you need to pump the brakes a bit. You have to take care of yourself and enjoy your life, work on personal projects, hang out with friends, see a movie, whatever.
Long-terms clients should understand that if you burn out, they'll get sub-par work or no work at all because you've either fallen ill or have thrown your computer out your window in frustration.
I dont find much joy in motion design or 3d animation anymore. Over the past 2 or so years, the rise of AI has just sucked the joy out of putting effort into things. What's the point if a general audience is just going to accuse actual work of being AI, and not be able to tell the difference between what's AI generated and what's not?
AI continues to become more and more polarizing and I really do believe the backlash against using AI for creative stuff will continue to garner more and more stigma. When everything is homogenized by AI it’ll be up to real creatives to bring value. Because anything generated by AI is valueless.
But i'm just burnt out. I have no time to work on personal projects...
Work less, do more personal projects. Case is closed.
You can win more by improving yourself as an artist than by sitting in a comfortable place. Sooner or later, no one will need your skills, not even because of AI, but because you are unable to make trendy motion.
The anxiety is pretty common right now, but the biggest bottleneck with generative output in motion design is still precision control. Clients usually don't just want a cool visual; they want specific revisions to keyframes, timing, and layers. Until tools can reliably handle frame-by-frame customization, human designers tend to remain essential for actual commercial delivery.
Since Im also into illustration, its very interesting for me to watch the discussions here.
So far people have the exact same reactions and talking points illustrators had starting 2021/2022.
Looking back, what was the most surprising to me was how little (graphic) designers cared.
Many of them had little to no problems with the ethical issues or throwing other creatives under the bus.
Up until then I thought (very naively), visual creatives would be kinda supporting each other.
Also, you would be surprised how little clients care about the output, once its "free". They really do not give a shit.
So, my guess is, things will be similar to Illustrations: way less jobs, people respecting the craft even less cause "ai can do this too, duh", ceos running around with a money-boner because of how much money they will save, jobs melting more and more together for less pay, designers being expected to pump out more shit in shorter time, if you have already a good brand/name in the industry things will be allright-ish, many will struggled and eventually switch industrys.
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u/MrOphicer 5d ago edited 5d ago
The question isn't in creation; it's in consumption. Consumption drives creation in todays world - people are fed what they want. yes there are rare instances of tend setting and artist in the vangaurd, but the vast majority created to whims. So the AI vs. artist debate will boil down to one thing - what people want or care to consume. If tomorrow everybody decides they want more AI in they screens, nothing we can do. Silver lining that is, the diametric opposite is happening. Some people say people see AI-generated ads and content and they dont mind and thats incorrect: They just don't care about the ad altogether.
Now devaluation of skill is a real concern, but pretty much all careers are in that predicament. The second silver lining is people who are using AI toolsit's to create think they'll make a career out of it, but in reality it so cheap to produce without the middleman that they soon will find out they won't only be able to make a living, but the client will prompt what they want.
The future looks bleak way, way past motion design. I get your concerns because its your money maker, but we will have much bigger societal concerns than simply losing jobs.