Playgrounds: do not generate children's faces

Facility plates only. Likeness of minors is not a style.

An indoor playground sells the room: the foam pit, the netting, the empty floor at 7am. It does not sell a generated child. A photoreal kid on the structure is a likeness problem, a platform ban, and a parent who clocks the fake before the second cut. Calling it a vibe does not move any of those. This is general information, not legal advice.

The room is the product

Parents already spend their lives looking at children's faces. They will not forgive a synthetic one in your facility. The version that works is the place, empty, plus consented adults — staff, owners, a parent who signed for themselves. Backs of heads and hands on equipment are how you imply play without inventing a pupil.

Image-to-video is the tool shape. Frame one is the file you sent: the real pit, the real mural. The model's only job is motion — a slow drift, a light shift. Text-to-video will invent a cousin of your building and children to fill it. Do not give it that job.

Prompt the camera, not a kid. "Empty indoor playground, no people, slow push across the foam pit" is a facility plate. "Happy children playing on our inflatables" is a request for a minor's likeness. The second prompt is not a style.

Generated b-roll covers buildings, equipment, weather, title cards — not people, and especially not minors. A blurred generated child is not a fix. It reads as something that had to be hidden.

Likeness of a minor is not a style

A deepfake of a private person is not a style is the private-figure case. This post is the under-18 case, which is stricter. TikTok's AI-generated content help is explicit: young people under 18, and adult private figures used without permission, are not hostable likeness. Labelling the clip does not create a grant. "We aged them up from a birthday photo" is how you get their head.

Minors are a hard stop. No likeness of anyone under 18 as a synthetic person. Do not use a party still or a Slack pic of a child as a "character reference." Style reference of a child's headshot is how you get their head.

A parent or employee is still not a style. If a reasonable person who knows them would say "that is them," you have a replica. A likeness release that covers generation is the clause list: a standard model release authorises footage you shot, not new footage of someone, and it does not reach a child. Invented children are not the workaround. Do not put a "mascot kid" in the pit.

What you actually generate

1. Empty facility stills you already own. Then I2V. Labels and foam colour survive because frame one is the file.
2. Staff who signed a replica grant, or staff you actually filmed.
3. Title cards and party packages as overlays after picture lock — authored text, not painted glyphs.
4. Nothing that implies "this is a guest of ours" if the face is synthetic.

If the brief is "UGC that looks like a real birthday," shoot a real birthday with parental grants, or stay on the empty room. The look of UGC is lighting, framing, a hook. It is not someone else's child.

FAQ

If we label the video AI-generated, can we show generated kids?

Not as a general rule, and not on TikTok. The under-18 restriction is permission, not labelling. A label tells viewers the media is synthetic. It does not create a grant, and it does not make a minor legal.

Can we generate a child from behind, with no face?

Do not. Scale and posture still read as a child. Facility plates are empty rooms and equipment. If you need a human in frame, use a consented adult, or do not generate a person.

We have a photo of last Saturday's party. Can we animate it?

Not if identifiable children are in the still. Image-to-video will move whatever is in frame one, including faces you were not supposed to replicate. Crop to empty equipment, or shoot the room empty, then animate that.

Is a cartoon kid on the slide safer?

Stylised illustration that is not photoreal of a real child is a narrower lane, and platforms still have their own lines. When in doubt, do not seed from a child's photo. Empty rooms do not have this problem.