Another major entertainment firm is entering the AI production arena. According to a spate of recent job listings, Netflix has been building up an internal studio called INKubator which will be focused on using AI to produce animated short-form content, with ambitions to scale to long-form projects in the future. The posts list locations in Los Angeles and Los Gatos, outside San Jose, for the onsite positions. The development was first reported by Janko Roettgers’ Lowpass via The Verge.
According to Netflix, this is an artist-led animation incubator launching in consultation with Netflix content creators to develop new, extended stories based on the studio’s own IP: “The initiative will provide creators with an artist-focused environment to experiment in, where they can explore how new tools and workflows, alongside traditional animation creative practices, can be leveraged to enhance their storytelling capabilities.”
“Netflix Animation Studios’ films will continue to be made using traditional animation techniques and practices,” the company further asserted.
Lowpass found some LinkedIn profiles for INKubator employees which indicate the studio had a low-key launch in March of this year — the same month that Netflix announced it would be acquiring InterPositive, the AI movie production startup founded by Ben Affleck, in a deal said to be worth as much as $600 million. Among folks tied to INKubator on LinkedIn are Serrena Iyer, a former strategy/operations lead at studios including DreamWorks Animation, A24 and MRC.
Piecing together information from job listings for roles such as producers, CG artists, compositors, software engineers, TDs and head of technology, the mission of the new studio takes shaped: INKubator (also referred to as INK) is Netflix’s “next-generation, creative-led, GenAI-native animation studio” aiming to “bridge innovation with imaginative storytelling.” The outfit will focus on “creating animated shorts and specials using experimental GenAI-native production pipelines” with a goal of attaining “feature-quality content.”
In tech-focused postings, INKubator’s strategy is outlined with a focus on “GenAI-enabled workflows, artist tooling, and scalable, secure multi-show environments.” The sought-after head of technology will “ensure that INK’s technology investments accelerate creative ambition […] as we ramp up activity and aim to expand into longer-form content.”
[Sources: Netflix, The Verge]
