An R&D lab built around an AI-augmented production pipeline
The research lab is the part that separates this from a rental stage. Orbital's R&D centers on a real-time pipeline that folds AI into the production process rather than bolting it on afterward.
CEO A.J. Wedding has described an internal AI system, built by the studio's head of AI, that reads and evaluates a script and turns it into visualizations in seconds instead of weeks, running on Dell and NVIDIA infrastructure aligned to Dell's AI Factory reference architecture. Orbital frames the result as an "Experience Platform," where scripts, AI agents, the virtual art department, and the LED volume operate in one live feedback loop on the stage.
The lab also runs external research work. Orbital has an R&D partnership with SISU Cinema Robotics focused on camera robotics for virtual production, a sign the research operation predates the Television City move.
Orbital's stack: LED volume, Virtual Art Department, and Gaussian splatting
Orbital supplies the technical core of the facility. Its LED volume ships with camera tracking and real-time rendering, backed by an in-house Virtual Art Department that builds the environments productions shoot against.
The company also brings AI-assisted content creation and 3D Gaussian Splatting, a technique that reconstructs real locations from captured imagery. We previously covered production-ready Gaussian splatting reaching LED volumes through Unreal Engine.
Credits from Nemesis to The Drop, plus a CAA signing
Orbital Studios was founded in 2020 by A.J. Wedding, who serves as CEO. Its work includes Netflix's Nemesis, for which the studio rebuilt portions of downtown Los Angeles from digital scans, along with Justified: City Primeval, History's Greatest Heists, and the 20-part docuseries World War II With Tom Hanks. The studio is in production on the FX series The Drop: A Snowfall Saga, and signed with CAA to represent its virtual production business. We highlighted Orbital's LED volume through its Lollipop Racing work.
A permanent volume on a legacy lot as a bet on Los Angeles
The partners have not disclosed an opening date, square footage, or financial terms. What they have described is a working stage doubling as a research lab, positioning Television City to test virtual production techniques alongside live productions.
"We could not be more excited to welcome Orbital Studios to Television City," said Anthony Mazziotti, Executive Director of Stage Operations and Marketing at Television City Studios. "Their work puts this lot among the most advanced production environments anywhere, while honoring everything these stages have stood for."
Wedding tied the technology to the lot's history. "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," he said, "because the best way to honor a storied place is to make sure the next great stories happen there, too."
