Orbital Studios, the virtual production company that has worked on History’s World War II with Tom Hanks and Netflix’s Nemesis, has moved to Television City and brought multiple LED walls along with it.
The firm has relocated its headquarters from the Arts District to the 25-acre production campus on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles, it announced along with Television City on Monday. As a result, Television City will now house the company’s virtual production and research and development lab, offering LED volume possibilities to projects that shoot there.
“We could not be more excited to welcome Orbital Studios to Television City, ” stated Anthony Mazziotti, Television City Studios’ executive director of stage operations and marketing. “Their work puts this lot among the most advanced production environments anywhere, while honoring everything these stages have stood for. This is exactly the kind of partnership that keeps Television City both iconic and essential.”
Virtual production, which has been used on projects like Disney+’s The Mandalorian and HBO Max’s House of the Dragon, deploys technology (CGI, LED screens, augmented reality) to create specific effects and backdrops on a physical set. Think of sunset scenes with a vista of Gotham in Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Batman or action taking place in a jungle in Disney’s Thor: Love and Thunder.
Orbital Studios, which offers both mobile and non-mobile virtual production tools, is currently working on FX’s Snowfall spinoff series The Drop: A Snowfall Saga and recently helped Nemesis portray a version of downtown Los Angeles through digital scans.
Amid a decline in production in Los Angeles, the 73-year-old Television City has been changing things up, opening up its stages to influencers in 2025 and planning an expansion that has been challenged by The Grove owner Rick Caruso in court.
The move to invest in virtual production appears to be another way that the Hackman Capital Partners-owned facility, once synonymous with previous owner CBS, is attempting to survive in the brave new world of the entertainment business.
“Walking these stages, you feel the weight of what was made here,” Orbital Studios founder and CEO A.J. Wedding said in a statement. “Generations of crews poured everything they had into these rooms. That legacy makes us determined to get it right. We’re bringing the latest in virtual production technology and the most talented virtual art and AI artists inside spaces that helped define American television, because the best way to honor a storied place is to make sure the next great stories happen there, too.”
