Amazon MGM Studios and AWS have teamed up on an animation initiative built around generative AI tools, and named its first three projects: Cupcake & Friends from BuzzFeed Studios, Love, Diana Music Hunters from former Nickelodeon executive Albie Hecht, and Punky Duck from Jorge R. Gutierrez, creator of The Book of Life.
Amazon says it wants creators who will use AI for previsualisation, asset generation and production workflows. Punky Duck follows a punk duck and his cat friend through a cartoonishly exaggerated Los Angeles. Cartoon Brew singled out Gutierrez's involvement as the unexpected one, given his reputation for handmade, personal work and support for animation craft.
Gutierrez later told the outlet he sees the show as an experiment he will approach cautiously, with artists steering the technology, and that the project was greenlit within two months of his pitch. The initiative puts Amazon next to Netflix, which is staffing a GenAI-native animation studio, amid unease among artists about training data and jobs.
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