They are doing truly gorgeous work. However, what with CGI taking over everything, I question whether this is a viable career option for people just starting out. Even the experienced pros have seen a dramatic drop in their work orders. Just ask someone like Rick Gamez.
As someone who had a art direction/production design class recently, one of my instructors pretty much pointed out there will always be a need for people like these kids, no matter what production it may be (anything from stop motion animated movies to CG based productions. There will always be productions that need props and set dressings that are scratch built. Even
Sin City had characters using props that had to be physically constructed. Even
Toy Story, or any Pixar film, needs people to design items for their film (I recommend looking up one of the posts here for the movie
UP, where there's a link to a production designer that had to design the painting that was hanging up in the house, patches, the Adventure Book, and every item a character used within the film). Trust me, just because CG takes over something doesn't mean that production design and art direction is going to die out. People are still needed for those positions. Even though they did away with their model department, ILM has switched over to CG, but still require an art director and production designer to get stuff, even CG models, made.
Classes like this helps shape potential production designers and art directors right out of high school. Trust me, there's always going to be a position for art directors and production designers, even in 100% CG movies.
