CGO Studios
- Open roles
- 0
- Founded
- 2015
- Employees
- 1-10
- Offices
- 2
About CGO Studios
CGO Studios is an independent immersive media production studio based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Established in 2015, it creates historically grounded virtual reality, augmented reality and real-time 3D experiences for educational and cultural settings. Its work combines historical storytelling with digital reconstruction, giving audiences an immersive way to encounter significant events, places and people.
The studio develops experiences for museums, schools, academic institutions and location-based entertainment venues. Its capabilities span immersive experience design, historical environment and asset reconstruction, interactive exhibition installations and educational simulations. Photogrammetry, motion capture, volumetric capture and real-time rendering support its approach to recreating historical settings and human activity.
Historical experiences
The studio's inaugural production, FIRST, recreated Wilbur and Orville Wright's first powered flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Unveiled at E3 in June 2015, the project was later expanded as Wright Brothers: Legacy in Flight. It established the historical recreation focus that continues across the studio's subsequent work.
EVEREST '53: The First Ascent, currently in development, recreates Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's 1953 ascent of Mount Everest through interactive, real-time VR. The production addresses the expedition's historical setting and period climbing techniques.
Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary, initially announced as Anne, is a multi-phase project in development that reconstructs the Secret Annex and explores Anne Frank's life and historical context. Its planned format is a seated, 25-minute VR experience, bringing the studio's reconstruction methods to a different kind of historical environment.
A platform for immersive history
The studio is also developing Ex Libris: Immersive Museum of History, a spatial platform intended to bring modular historical experiences together in a digital museum. Designed for deployment across museums, schools and entertainment venues, it provides an overarching framework for an expanding collection of historical vignettes. The development slate encompasses scientific discoveries, cultural milestones, technological advances and civil rights history, extending the studio's work beyond individual standalone experiences.
More about CGO Studios
Founders
The studio was founded by producer Jonah Hirsch alongside Jake Green, a USC mechanical engineering alumnus and founder of VRSC.
Research and production model
Productions draw on primary archival evidence, blueprints, diaries and photographs, with input from historians, cultural institutions and surviving descendants. The studio scales major initiatives through institutional researchers and specialist external vendors, including VFX company Dilated Pixels.
Collaborations and milestones
- FIRST was developed with Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum curators and co-sponsored by AMD as a demonstration of high-performance graphics hardware. Following its E3 debut, it was showcased at Comic-Con, SIGGRAPH and the Toronto International Film Festival.
- Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing Norgay collaborated on EVEREST '53, helping inform the recreation of their fathers' expedition and climbing techniques.
- Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary involves Holocaust scholars and fiscal sponsor Jewish Creativity International.
Notable credits
14 creditsOffices
Where CGO Studios is based
- 148 S Roxbury Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, United StatesBeverly Hills, California, United States
Beverly Hills office
HeadquartersOverall company headquarters in Greater Los Angeles, coordinating historical research, VR software development and executive production.
- Los Angeles, California, United States
Los Angeles office
Open roles
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