Los Angeles-based AI startup Moonvalley has released a video generator purpose-built for entertainment and advertising. Called Marey, its creators say it was designed with the “specifications and tastes” of filmmakers and studios in mind and trained exclusively on owned or fully licensed source data to protect users from lawsuits. Asteria, a partner in the venture, owns a large documentary library through its subsidiary XTR. Its founders say Marey aims to usher in “a new era of GenAI video built to empower — not replace — the creative forces behind modern motion pictures.”

With Marey, the goal of Moonvalley “is to increase access to visual creativity for filmmakers globally — radically reducing the cost of production for artists,” the company explains in its launch announcement.

The model aims to empower global filmmakers with a legal and sustainable model, likewise providing the advertising industry with a safe means of exploring “cinematic-quality” generative storytelling.

Marey — which takes its name from Victorian chronophotographer Étienne-Jules Marey (“The Horse in Motion”) — “can generate ‘HD’ clips up to 30 seconds in length,” according to TechCrunch.

Marey not only offers a virtual camera, but also object-specific in-scene animation, “such as controlling the movement of an individual checkers piece, or animating the exact breeze blowing through a person’s hair,” the company says, explaining the technical specs were designed with input from directors, editors and others.

“The idea was how to build this technology around the creator,” Moonvalley co-founder and CEO Naeem Talukdar told SiliconANGLE: “I need to be able to click the camera and drag it around. I need to be able to see my characters, stage and cast them. I can’t do that by looking at a giant text prompt.”

Prior to co-founding Moonvalley, Talukdar led product growth at Zapier. “He recruited Mateusz Malinowski and Mik Binkowski to launch Moonvalley — both former scientists at DeepMind,” writes TechCrunch.

“To develop their model, Moonvalley partnered with Asteria, a generative AI film and animation studio led by two-time Oscar nominee Bryn Mooser,” reports SilliconANGLE. In addition to XTR, Asteria owns the streaming platform Documentary+, which claims to reach more than 120 million households.

Moonvalley and Asteria began teasing their model in January. While they claim Marey is “the first fully clean AI model,” Adobe Firefly also offers generative video marketed as trained on 100 percent licensed material. And future competitors will likely include Google and Facebook, “as tech giants are changing their terms of use to gain a data advantage: Google is training its Veo video model on YouTube videos, while Meta is training its models on Instagram and Facebook content,” TechCrunch reports.