AI-generated film makes its Tribeca debut

Amazon MGM Studios is betting on generative AI to power a new wave of animated children's programming, with three shows greenlit following presentations at the AI on the Lot conference. COO Albert Cheng and the creators behind each project made their case for using AI tools in production, though the results have drawn skeptical early reactions. The move signals a significant shift in how a major studio is approaching animation pipelines and content development.

A 75-minute AI-generated film about the Iranian government's killing of protesters will premiere at the Tribeca Festival next month. Called Dreams of Violets, it was made for roughly $2,000 by two Iranian-born brothers using AI to recreate people and events drawn from journalistic records and eyewitness accounts.

Adobe's Firefly AI Assistant takes a different approach than most generative image tools - acting as a conversational agent that operates Adobe's design apps on your behalf rather than generating images from scratch. A hands-on beta test finds the concept genuinely interesting but the actual output underwhelming, somewhere between useful shortcut and frustrating limitation.

Director Jorge R. Gutierrez has walked back plans to produce an AI-generated animated series called 'Punky Duck' for Amazon MGM following significant backlash from the animation community. Gutierrez said his original intent was to highlight artists using the technology, but the response made clear the project would not move forward in its planned form.