Amazon is embarking on a massive push to incorporate generative AI into every area of its business, and entertainment is no exception, with the tech company on Wednesday launching a new fund to incentivize creators to utilize the technology across their production pipelines.
The company’s Amazon MGM Studios and Amazon Web Services divisions announced the GenAI Creators Fund, which will provide filmmakers, digital creators, and startups with funding and access to Amazon’s AI tools to create “high-quality filmed entertainment.”
Albert Chen, Head of AI Studio at Amazon MGM Studios, said in an interview. hollywood reporter: “AI unlocks many capabilities in creating an incredible range of storytelling that has always been cost-prohibitive.” He added, “World-building shows and movies can now be shot on soundstages in much faster time than ever before.”
The announcement was made during the tech company’s “AI on the Lot” event in Culver City, which also showcased the first few green-lighted projects to emerge from the fund. Includes three original animated series. punky duck from Maya and the three and book of life With director Jorge Gutierrez Love, Diana Music Huntersa series created by former Nickelodeon executive Albie Hecht and featuring pocket.watch and YouTube star Diana. The order of the third series is cupcakes & friends From Buzzfeed Studios.
Projects in this fund will use Amazon’s Project Naga platform. This is a new production tool on Amazon Web Services that features third-party generative AI models such as Kling, as well as proprietary AI tools trained on the Amazon MGM Studios project. The platform also includes traditional industry tools such as Blender, Maya, and Adobe Suite.
Project Nala aims to serve creative teams, Chen said. “What it’s trying to do is streamline and facilitate the end-to-end workflow of what we do, but also leverage existing applications that professionals already know,” he added.
Amazon MGM Studios also has access to the platform, but Cheng notes that Amazon’s AI Studios is the most avid user. “Has it been used in other movies or TV shows? Yes,” he says. “But today, with so-called point solutions where most companies are using AI, it’s mostly, ‘Here’s this VFX shot. I’m wondering if AI can decipher it, can you help me?’” And we’ve done that with a lot of movies and TV shows. ”
The foundation found animation projects through referrals from Amazon’s animation team and agents who knew creators interested in AI. That may not have been easy in a field where many creators feel threatened, morally torn, or skeptical about generative AI. “I guess you wanted people who were into it and had an interest in it. There aren’t that many people who do that,” Chen admitted.
Still, another Amazon executive argues that the fund will help democratize access to professional tools and funding. Samira Pana Bakhtyar, general manager of media and entertainment at Amazon Web Services, said the initiative will “level the playing field in cinematic storytelling.”
Amazon will next announce the digital creators it will collaborate with through the fund. “What’s interesting about this fund is that it brings together established filmmakers as well as digitally native creators and technology startups,” says Pana Bakhtyar. “So I think there’s an opportunity, especially on the technology side, for some of these startups to get the expertise of AWS to build production solutions for studios and validate them against some of the real-world cinematic workflows.” That will lead to “larger-scale storytelling,” she says.
Amazon’s new AI efforts come as other entertainment companies, both traditional players and tech-forward streaming giants, seek to integrate technology into their workflows to create content at a faster pace and at lower cost.
For example, earlier this year, Netflix acquired Interpositive, an AI film production company founded by Ben Affleck, with plans to make its technology available to creators of its own movies and TV shows. And earlier this month, YouTube announced a suite of AI tools that allow users to “remix” short videos and insert themselves into other creators’ videos.
Animation is also considered ripe for disruption by AI, given the model’s ability to animate scenes quickly, and the number of people likely needed to make this happen is likely much smaller. For example, DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said he believes AI can reduce the cost of animated feature films by 90 percent.
Chen was vice president of Prime Video before moving into a new role focused on AI last summer. This week’s announcement is the first fruit of that effort, but it’s unlikely to be the last.
