Orbital Studios Moves Into L.A.'s Television City
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Orbital Studios is relocating to Television City in Los Angeles' Fairfax District, continuing a global expansion built on partnerships with other soundstages.
- Founded in 2020, the virtual production company provides art teams, tools, software, and pipelines designed to make high-end virtual production faster and more budget-friendly, with credits including Netflix's Nemesis, FX's upcoming The Drop: A Snowfall Saga, and Justified: City Primeval.
- The partnership arrives as many high-end productions relocate to other states and countries, with Orbital pitching virtual production as a way to capture global locations while keeping crew jobs and spending in Los Angeles.
- Television City, designated a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2018 and operating for nearly 75 years, has hosted All in the Family, The Carol Burnett Show, The Price Is Right, The Young and the Restless, and The Bold and the Beautiful.
- Orbital's additional credits include History Channel's History's Greatest Heists and the 20-part docuseries World War II with Tom Hanks, the latter currently in production.
- Founder and CEO A.J. Wedding framed the move as honoring Television City's legacy, saying the company is 'bringing the latest in virtual production technology' into spaces that 'helped define American television.'
Why it matters: Orbital's tenancy gives Television City — a 75-year-old venue anchored by daytime dramas and game shows — a high-tech anchor tenant at a moment when California's production economy is bleeding jobs to other states and countries. For L.A. crews, virtual production offers a way to compete with cheaper jurisdictions without physically relocating shoots, potentially keeping spending and labor local.
