In every case, an art director is looking to hire an artist to solve a problem.

Usually, it is a very specific problem. An artist on the team just quit, and they need a replacement. Or the next project requires amazing hair simulation, but there’s nobody on staff that can do that.

So under what circumstances is an art director going to look for a junior artist straight out of school? In some cases there are studios that like hiring up lots of interns and training them internally. But aside from that, what is the advantage of a junior artist?