Prime Video Orders Animated Projects From GenAI Creators’ Fund Set Up By Amazon MGM Studios And AWS

Three animated series have received orders by Prime Video via the GenAI Creators’ Fund, a new joint initiative of Amazon Web Services and Amazon MGM Studios.

The projects are Cupcake & Friends from BuzzFeed Studios; Love, Diana Music Hunters from creator Albie Hecht, a former Nickelodeon exec who is now Chief Content Officer at pocket.watch; and Punky Duck from creator Jorge R. Gutierrez. All three series will stream on Prime Video down the line.

The greenlights from the fund were revealed Wednesday, the first day of the AI on the Lot conference in Los Angeles.

The creators’ fund is designed to provide top-shelf AI tools and funding to creators from a range of styles and backgrounds. The tech backbone of the fund is Project Nara, which is described as Amazon MGM Studios’ “purpose-built AI production platform for cinematic storytelling,” built with AWS infrastructure.

Project Nara is used exclusively by Amazon MGM Studios and by creators selected for the new creators’ fund. In the collaborative production workspace, creative teams can generate video, make edits, provide feedback, and track progress in real time.

“Creative breakthroughs happen when visionary storytellers are given access to transformative tools,” said Albert Cheng, Head of AI Studios, Amazon MGM Studios. “The GenAI Creators’ Fund and Project Nara position human creativity at the center of our efforts to integrate generative AI into our production processes at Amazon MGM Studios. We’re proud of the work that these filmmakers have accomplished and look forward to sharing these creators’ visions with the world.” 

Cheng, who had a long exec stint at Prime Video and prior to that at Disney-ABC, shifted to his current AI-focused role in a restructuring last year.

As the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival showed, AI has started to become more widely embraced in the industry, particularly in the animation and visual effects communities. Deals for new contracts with studios and streamers reached by the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA have eased worries that this year will not bring a repeat of the AI-angst-fueled strikes of 2023.

The creators’ fund is designed to support professional filmmakers as they develop genAI workflows. It offers grants for proof-of-concepts and shorts from creators who have built large audiences on digital platforms but have not had access to professional-grade production tools. It also gives startups that are building production solutions access to Amazon’s expertise.

In announcing the projects, the studio and tech divisions of Amazon released brief loglines. Cupcake & Friends is the story of “a relatable cupcake and her friends” who face the “hilarious and thrilling challenges of a sleepover, with unexpected twists at every corner.”

Love, Diana Music Hunters stems from pocket.watch creator partner Diana, who has a large YouTube subscriber base. “This young band of K-pop space-traveling musicians races to Planet Goo, where they must perform a concert to restore the music and save the aliens,” the logline says.

Punky Duck creator Gutierrez is an Emmy winner whose credits include writing and directing animated feature The Book of Life for 20th Century Studios. He also created El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon and Maya and the Three for Netflix. His genAI series follows “a lovable punk duck and his best friend, Smiley Cat” as they “tear through a wildly exaggerated Los Angeles, hilariously stumbling into alien invasions, giant monsters, robot criminal conspiracies, telenovela-style family drama, and supernatural mayhem—all while trying (and usually failing) to do the right thing.”