(Los Angeles, Calif.)—Jzoo Studios, a collective focused on location sound and post-production, relies on Lectrosonics wireless gear when working with its clients, which include heavy hitters such as Autodesk, Google, Goldman Sachs and Intel.
Headed up by Shiheng “Jedy” Xu, Jzoo’s work has also included an ad campaign with golf champion Collin Morikawa that helped Fortune Brand Studio win ten 2021 Telly Awards, and sound for a live stream in which Spider-Man: No Way Home star Tom Holland interacted from L.A. with the Italian press in Rome—as a hologram.
“We do a lot of corporate work rather than narrative fiction,” says Xu. “But we’re attracted to projects that involve a narrative story, a human story.”
Xu has forged an unconventional path for Jzoo Studios, and with that comes unconventional wireless applications, for which he finds Lectrosonics to be more than up to the task.
“I don’t think a lot of people do this,” he says, “but I use Lectro for sound design and to record sound libraries. This usually involves my DPA 6060 mics and a smaller recorder. I can place transmitters on the mics and put them in a location where I want to record ambient sounds—traffic, nature, anything one might need for post. It’s much more convenient than running a cable. I sell these sound libraries, as well, so they need to be top-notch for other people’s use, not just my own.”
Most recently, Team Jzoo found itself on one of its most channel-dense shoots ever, for which they brought in their new Lectrosonics DSQD receivers paired with Wireless Designer software.
We just did this shoot that involved around 13 people, plus a wireless boom,” Xu describes. “The content is about a hypnotist trying to hypnotize a large group of people for Offline TV, a popular YouTube collective started by a bunch of famous Twitch streamers. We were using DSQDs, one SRb, three SRcs and the boom. Wireless Designer made it easy to scan and coordinate all the frequencies for the SMQV and SMDWB transmitters. Everything got set up super-fast.
“Using the Dante connectivity of the DSQD, all the transmission was then run into an Allen & Heath SQ5 digital mixer, then the recorder,” he continues. “This was one of my first experiences mixing through Dante, and with such a high wire count in a confined room, and I was blessed with no dropouts or inter-modulation issues. This speaks greatly to the quality of Lectro gear. I should mention that none of this would have been possible without my co-mixer, Shaun Yee from True Peak Soundworks, who set up 90 percent of this configuration. Shaun and his team strongly believe in Lectrosonics, as well.”
