Moving the moon from the dark side of Earth: Wacom Cintiq Pro at Orbital Virtual Studios

This past October, Wacom launched the Cintiq Pro 27 — its most advanced creative pen display ever.

One of the benefits of the Cintiq Pro 27’s incredible specs is that it can be used to elevate advanced, cutting-edge workflows. That includes creative processes at the forefront of their industries — like Orbital Virtual Studios‘ virtual production stages.

What is virtual production?

According to CG Spectrum,

Virtual production grew in popularity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when reducing staff on-site at film sets was a necessity, but has continued to grow because of the power and flexibility it offers. Wacom technology was already powering some of the best virtual production workflows, and the power, precision, and best-in-class color fidelity of the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 takes the possibilities to the next level.

That’s why Wacom partnered with Orbital Virtual Studios, as well as some of the other major players in the virtual production space, to explore how the new Cintiq Pro 27 could elevate virtual production workflows.

Moving the Moon from the Dark Side of Earth was an Advanced Technology Showcase, featuring leaders in advancing virtual production. It included presentations from Orbital Virtual Studios, demonstrating the power of their studio, and Narwhal Studios, virtual producers behind a variety of film and TV projects including The Mandalorian, Black Adam, and FATHEAD, a new short film produced by Narwhal virtually.

• First, Orbital Virtual Studios gave a demo of their studio. Leaders from Narwhal studio explored how virtual production can be democratized, meaning more diverse stakeholders can be involved in the filmmaking process. They explained how innovative virtual production pipelines were used in the creation of FATHEAD.
• Then, Wacom unveiled the new Wacom Cintiq Pro 27, and showed how it can be a powerful tool for virtual production, from LED wall compositing to sound mitigation, sound mixing, and post-production sound editing.
• Finally, musician Bon Harris showed how the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 can be utilized for other projects, by conducting a live music performance utilizing the Cintiq Pro 27!

Check out some photos from the event below.

A.J. Wedding (Instagram, LinkedIn), director and co-founder of Orbital, and Chris Cope (Instagram, LinkedIn), co-founder and owner of Orbital, opened the event by explaining the virtual production process and how the studio continues to innovate within the virtual production space.

To see more of the incredible work happening at Orbital Virtual Studios, check out their 2022 Production reel:

Wacom team members Arvind Arumbakkam and Faik Karaoglu demonstrated the power of the Cintiq Pro 27 when it comes to virtual production workflows. The Wacom team was well represented at the event.

Felix Jorge (Instagram, LinkedIn) of Narwhal Studios discussed the process of democratizing virtual production, and Erik Weaver (LinkedIn), executive producer of the short film ‘FATHEAD,’ discussed the innovative virtual production pipelines that were used when creating the film.

According to Etcentric, “Wacom developed the ‘Wacom Brain Trust’ program to provide the ‘Fathead’ team with Wacom Cintiq pen displays … the goal was to enhance creative breakthroughs across the Unreal Engine virtual production pipeline, 3D scanning, metahumans, virtual fashion, and multi-touch displays combined with pressure sensitive pen technology.”

For more on how Wacom Cintiq Pro was utilized in the production process of FATHEAD, check out the video below:

Eric Rigney (LinkedIn), virtual production sound specialist, discussed how sound mixing and mitigation happens within a virtual workflow. Later, Bon Harris of Nitzer Ebb demonstrated how the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 can be used to make music with a live performance!