Cocomelon's studio asks animators to experiment with AI in show production

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Moonbug Entertainment, the children’s entertainment studio that makes the hugely popular shows Cocomelon, Little Baby Bum, Blippi, and Mia’s Magic Playground has asked its animators to start using artificial intelligence while making its shows, 404 Media has learned.

Moonbug’s Generative AI policy and its “Studio AI Bible,” a guide to using AI to help generate content, seen by 404 Media, explain in detail how its AI use will work. The policies indicate that the company is in the initial stages of experimenting with AI in the creation of its shows, but that for the moment it has put several guardrails in place in part over legal and copyright concerns associated with using AI in a more substantial way.

“Keep a human in the loop when using AI. AI is used to assist the artist, not be the artist,” the guidelines say. “Always remember that we can only own (copyright) what a human has created and so we need to ensure the final execution involves substantial human creative input. Our core IP (e.g. key characters/signature worlds and important backgrounds) must reflect substantial human creative input and intentionality.”

The documents show in detail how a major studio, which runs an empire of content that is wildly popular with infants, toddlers, and their families, is using AI. Moonbug’s shows have hundreds of millions of subscribers on YouTube, and many of its shows have spinoff series and movies that air across several major streaming services. Cocomelon spinoffs air on Netflix, the studio is working on a Cocomelon movie for Universal, and the series is set to move to Disney+ next year. YouTube has been flooded with AI-generated content for infants and toddlers, but these documents indicate that even the biggest companies in the industry are using AI, albeit with far more thought and care than slop purveyors. Its properties also have various popular children and baby toys.

“Like many media companies, we're exploring how AI tools can support our creative and production teams. Today, generative AI is not used in episodes of our content,” a Moonbug spokesperson told 404 Media. “Our core principle is that AI should assist the artist, not be the artist. Our guidelines prohibit AI from originating key creative elements such as new characters, core storylines and song lyrics, and require substantial human creative input. Everything we produce — whether they incorporate AI-assisted elements or not — goes through our human-led creative and quality-control process, including frame-by-frame human eyeball review, and rounds of iterations and notes from our creative and production teams.”

The guidelines say that AI can be used for ideation, scripting, storyboarding, design, and animation, but has put guardrails on how AI can be used in each step of the process.

For example, the company says animators can use AI for “utility tasks/standard production enhancers,” but cannot use it to “alter a VO/actor’s performance without checking with Legal.” It says AI can be used “to refine a human-authored draft,” but “no ghost-writing. Do not generate key creative elements (character arcs, core plot twists, song lyrics) from scratch by AI. The narrative ‘soul’ and key dialogue beats must remain human-authored.” The company says AI can be used to “generate visual research, vibe boards, brainstorm ideas and concepts and exploring texture/colour/lighting references,” but that there is “no ‘prompt to product.’ […] do not move a 100% AI-generated design directly into the production pipeline. It must be translated into a studio-drawn concept to ensure it meets our technical standards and style.”

At times, the guide gets very granular. It says workers are allowed to use AI to create “generic” designs and textures, such as trees in a background or furniture, for character outfit changes, or for “creating 3D turnarounds from existing human-created 2D characters,” but usually cannot use it to create wholly new characters. “The [AI] assets must be processed by an artist (eg over-painted, tweaked) to ensure human in loop. All new characters should be human created (unless have had approval for specific IPs). Props — if we are creating something unique and to be heavily featured in the series e.g. the Clubhouse — it must be human created. All franchise specific worlds should be human created (unless intended to be generic).”

The company is requiring employees to “first test all tools with non Moonbug IP and/or test assets before proceeding with legal approval.” After being approved by legal, employees are allowed to use AI to help create assets for Moonbug shows, but all AI use, including the prompts used to generate assets, must be cataloged and saved. The company spokesperson told 404 Media that “non Moonbug IP” refers to generic assets that the company has made: “We created generic test characters and environments so teams can freely explore new tools without using Moonbug IP or anyone else's IP. If a tool proves useful, further testing with Moonbug IP requires appropriate approvals.”

“Making content for young children comes with a particular responsibility, regardless of the tools involved,” the spokesperson added. “Our GenAI guidelines add another layer of guardrails: no ‘prompt-to-product,’ human authorship of core creative elements, approved tools and legal review, protections around performers and third-party IP, and human review of finished work. Ultimately, people make the creative decisions about what is appropriate and worthy of our audience.”

All AI tools that the company uses must have individual legal approval, and all AI-generated assets must be kept in separate file folders than human-created ones using a system it is calling “provenance and isolation,” according to the guidelines. The “goal” of this file management system is “to ensure we always have a path back to human-authored works to maintain copyright ownership over what matters.”

“Every project must have a dedicated folder for AI generated assets. No file from this folder should be moved into main production folders without being processed by human artist [sic] first. All 100% human created assets must also be stored and labeled properly,” the guidelines say. Workers must log all of their AI prompts, then also write an explanation of how a human transformed the asset if it is ultimately used in production.

A section of the document called “prompt guidance” says that workers should begin the AI production process by “upload[ing] a human-drawn sketch/Moonbug owned IP as a structural reference, use AI as a refiner eg to add texture/lighting.” It says “No text-to-image prompting (unless for brainstorming/research,” and “no style mimicking or soundalikes — do not use prompts like ‘in the style of Pixar/Ghibli’ etc. Use descriptive artistic terms instead — eg ‘hand-painted water colour aesthetic’ or ‘vibrant street-art aesthetic, chromatic aberration.’”

In May, workers with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees working on a live action Cocomelon spinoff show went on strike , alleging that they were not being provided fair wages and benefits.

“We see AI as a tool that can expand what talented creative people are able to do, not a substitute for the people who create our stories,” the Moonbug spokesperson said. “We're exploring whether these tools can reduce repetitive work, enhance the creative process and potentially allow our teams to create more stories and experiences for families.”