‘The Loud House’ Director Jessica Borutski Questions Hollywood’s Future As Show Moves S10 Production To Canada

Nickelodeon’s The Loud House will continue into a tenth season, but its Los Angeles production crew won’t, according to longtime series director Jessica Borutski.

Speaking with Grim & Evil creator Maxwell Atoms on his YouTube series Billy & Mandy vs. The Entertainment Industry, Borutski said the show’s next production season would keep its showrunners but move production to Canada. She described the decision as a cost-cutting move.

“They didn’t hire any of the LA crew,” she said. “They’re sending all of the production work to Canada… They wanna make it, but cheaper.”

The move reflects a broader concern running through long parts of the conversation: animation work leaving Los Angeles, and artists questioning whether they can still build careers there, or at all. Borutski describes widespread unemployment among her colleagues and people leaving, while Atoms questions studios’ willingness to fund productions adequately.

While both speakers share concern about artificial intelligence, neither has seen direct examples of AI replacing workers in their studios, or even being implemented into workflows. “I don’t know any shows that are being made with assisted AI right now. There’s nothing. At least not at the typical Nickelodeons,” she says, before Disney Jr.’s Ozzy Fox, a collaboration with AI-focused company Animaj, as the lone exception that she’s aware of.

For artists, the uncertainty encompasses both where the work is going and whether a sustainable career will remain. “I wonder what the second half of my life’s going to look like,” Borutski says with a nervous laugh. “Will there still even be a Hollywood scene?”

“Does this just end up being something I do between shifts at the grocery store?” Atoms half-jokes in reply.

While both can laugh now, there’s real concern in their delivery, and in the delivery of just about every artist we’ve talked to over the past several years.