L.A. Film Students Face Hollywood’s Shrinking Job Market

By Tom Whitfield

Hollywood’s Los Angeles footprint is shrinking as media consolidation partly fuels layoffs at Netflix, Walt Disney and Warner Bros.; Paramount-Skydance recently acquired Warner Bros. Productions also keep leaving California, while AI and vertical video reshape what gets made and who makes it, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Aspiring actors, screenwriters and directors at USC, UCLA and Loyola Marymount University remain committed to film careers despite anxiety about scarce openings. Students still move to Los Angeles to pursue those careers. The Times says some would follow work out of the city; others are betting on an independent-film and box-office revival. None of the students interviewed plans to quit.

UCLA senior Tomas Carrasco, 25, captured their resolve: “You have to kind of be naive. You have to be delusional about wanting to have a career in the arts.”

What does the shrinking market change for graduates?

It changes the likely route into work, not the goal.

• Angela Henderson, USC, 22: Applies for dozens of Hollywood jobs before graduating in December with a cinema and media studies degree from the School of Cinematic Arts. She admits she is frightened by what awaits her and would accept assistant or food service work while seeking a role behind the camera.
• Gianna Jordano, LMU, 19: Plans to take teaching and restaurant jobs while working toward directing.
• Tomas Carrasco, UCLA, 25: Will work at his family’s Mate Conmigo in Northridge while pursuing production design.

Miranda Banks, a professor of film, television and media studies at Loyola Marymount University, sees caution beneath that resolve.

“Some of us can see a lot of doom and gloom,” she said. “But this generation has their eye on the power of human creativity in a way that I’m not sure any of us in other generations have been so attuned to.”

Banks thinks many students have a good chance if they are savvy and strategic about the industry’s direction. Her judgment is not placement data, however. She notes that unprecedented, difficult years have happened before and will continue, which makes adaptability more credible than a promise of a smooth recovery.

Gianna Jordano, LMU, 19, first applied to film school while seeing the industry in a slump. Fewer movies, AI and a shortage of jobs had made her nervous.

After seeing Primetime, The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day in theaters this year, Jordano and her friends became more determined to pursue film. She believes open-mindedness and a willingness to take work make jobs easier, even when the role is not the desired one.

Her renewed confidence rests on three releases and her friends’ enthusiasm; the interviews offer no employment figures to test it.

USC freshman screenwriting majors Teddy Abularach and Mitch Linebaugh, both 18, recently moved from New York City and Des Moines, respectively. They share concern about employment after graduation but no plan to abandon screenwriting. Abularach expects a brutal postgraduation life and considers a small chance to earn a living doing something he loves worth the risk.

Linebaugh worries that algorithms and audience preferences could make everything uniform. He remains hopeful that writers and executives will resist uniformity and still want to make good films. If screenwriting fails, he will consider graduate school or entertainment law. Abularach says he has no plan B outside entertainment.

He cannot shake the stereotype of the L.A. writer who takes pitch meetings, gets coffee and works in writers’ rooms, and is already preparing for that life. The pair still intend to stay in Los Angeles as the local industry contracts. Their plans cover different risks, but neither supplies a job.

Tomas Carrasco, UCLA, 25, is preparing to shoot a surreal horror comedy for his senior capstone at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. He is not necessarily afraid for the industry because he believes there will always be space for artists.

Raised in the San Fernando Valley, he learned filmmaking on sets when his father, a soap opera editor, brought him to work. He loved the feeling of being around people making stuff, took every film class at Santa Monica College and entered UCLA’s film and television director track. He now aims for production design.

Carrasco acknowledges that movies are products that must make money. He sees mergers and AI pushing the business toward technology rather than art-centered risks, yet says he will keep attending class and completing his homework.

His concern about the industry takes up as much mental space as a movie idea. Working at Mate Conmigo offers stability without ending his creative ambitions.

Angela Henderson, USC, 22, grew up in Eagle Rock with two musician parents. She began acting at 10 and did theater and commercials. She started at UC Berkeley, then transferred to USC after deciding she wanted to study film from behind the camera as well as perform in front of it.

She arrived with aspirations modeled on Greta Gerwig, who started by writing and directing their own projects. Henderson says hundreds of students in local film programs want the same limited number of jobs and careers.

Although anxious, she believes her generation is tired of recycled material and eager to incite change and bring new stories to Hollywood. She believes a breakthrough is coming as vertical video and low-quality AI content on social media collide with renewed interest in independent movies.

For a graduate, the interviews suggest that persistence now needs a wider definition. Students accept less glamorous work, keep family businesses or plan adjacent careers, and may move where work goes. Their confidence rests on creativity, recent films and a hoped-for independent revival. The market may offer fewer Hollywood ladders; they still expect to find a rung.