Los Angeles-based Butcher Bird Studios operates at the intersection of live streaming, virtual production, and immersive media. With a nimble team of ten people, the creative shop produces technically ambitious projects for high profile clients, as well as its own IP (intellectual property). AJA gear is central to the team’s operations, providing flexible signal routing, low-latency I/O, and more for in-studio and remote productions. Technical Director Brian Druckman and Executive Producer MeeRa Kim recently discussed the studio's latest project slate, infrastructure, and roadmap. 

How would you describe Butcher Bird Studios?
MeeRa: In the simplest terms, we’re an LA-based production company. Our projects range from traditional interview-style setups to large-scale live streamed events, virtual productions, and immersive and emerging media. We’ve completed 180° and 360° VR projects for clients like Meta and BuzzFeed, and worked with Canon to document best practices for filming and post-production in 180° VR. With a diverse project slate, things are never boring around here, even if it makes what we do a little tougher to define.

Tell us more about your roles.
Brian: As a technical director, I oversee technical planning for live streams, including signal flow and video routing. I spend a lot of time building and testing proof of concept workflows.

MeeRa: I’m an executive producer, so I supervise production and operations, including staffing, scheduling, live shoots, and post. Because we’re a small team, my role touches nearly every part of a production.

Walk us through a recent project. 
Brian: We recently completed a pilot. It was a multi-camera shoot for a green screen virtual production involving three 4K camera feeds, which were fed into a live compositor, with Unreal Engine machines also fed into them. Improv actors reacted to what was being composited behind them. This required precise coordination across the stage, so we placed monitors strategically, overhead, at the ground level, and out of camera lines, which enabled performers, operators, and crew to all see the correct feeds in real time regardless of their location on stage. We also had a small sit-in audience.

We had to record every signal: camera ISOs, composited outputs, and isolated background feeds. Thankfully, we were able to use AJA KUMOs to route those SDI signals to all the necessary hardware, recorders, and displays across the facility. They were a real clutch for us on the project. We sent the composited feeds to the monitors as well as the camera operators, so they could see if anything was out of the frame and recorded. The agility they provided made the workflow far more efficient and allowed us to maintain a more seamless, low-latency production environment.

How else are you using KUMO in-studio? 
Brian: AJA KUMO sits at the heart of our video routing infrastructure. We route all of our signals through AJA KUMO 12G-SDI and 3G-SDI Routers, including one KUMO 3232-12G, one KUMO 1616-12G, and one KUMO 1616 (3G-SDI). They let us send and receive video anywhere in our facility, from our stage to green rooms and offices. That flexibility is critical, especially with our stage ceiling grid, where we mount monitors and route SDI to them. Producers, talent, and crew can monitor without crowding around one screen.

KUMO routers are fast, dependable, and easy to operate. Their web UI is great for keeping signals organized. The hardware strikes the right balance between industrial - working no matter what - and being easy enough to use. It also adds very little latency, which keeps everything feeling responsive for operators, talent, and audiences. 

We also rely heavily on salvos, which are pre-saved routing tables, for redundancy. Our team runs both primary and backup vMix systems for every show we do, so in the case the primary system fails, we can use salvos to instantly re-route our backup to the right destination. They're super simple to set and forget. Once configured, you can trust that you have a backup that works, which gives us huge peace of mind.

What about your setup for remote production? What gear do you use outside the studio? 
Brian: For offsite projects, we typically carry an AJA Io 4K Plus with us to support external Thunderbolt I/O for encoding setups. It allows us to keep our footprint small by using laptops or compact systems running OBS or vMix, rather than clunky workstations. Io 4K Plus is also useful when we need to add just one or two extra inputs, and most often serves as our I/O for final encoding and delivery.

Which industry trends are you tracking, and why?
Brian: Right now, the trend I’m following is remote production. REMI makes it easy to send a small camera team out in the field and send all that footage back to a central control room to deliver the stream. I think we’re going to see more broadcasters take productions remote this year and also see all the technologies supporting it continue to evolve, like SRT and SMPTE ST 2110. 

MeeRa: AI is a trend that’s not just on our minds but on those of many others in the industry. We’re seeing more studios look at how they can integrate AI into their workflows, and it's something I’m staying on top of. AI is a really promising technology that can help optimize every aspect of what we do from previsualization to post and final delivery, and I think we’re going to see more practical solutions emerge this year. 

What is on the horizon for Butcher Birds as 2026 kicks off? 
Brian: We’re focused on staying on top of industry trends, so we adapt to industry changes as they arise. Beyond that, we have aspirations to do more remote gigs and continue diversifying our client base.

MeeRa: To echo Brian’s sentiment, diversification will be a core priority for us in 2026, because we understand that success in any business means you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. Another focus for us is striking the right balance between feeding our inner creative child while also keeping a roof over our heads. To this end, we’re actually developing original IP (intellectual property) on our side, which we hope will become a new source of revenue. It’s certainly shaping up to be an exciting year for us.

About AJA KUMO Routers
KUMO routers provide a convenient, dense routing solution in a lightweight, compact, fanless form factor for use in facilities, OB trucks, post suites, and more. Available in multiple matrix sizes and in 3G-SDI and 12G-SDI options, KUMO is easy to update, configure, and control with optional Control Panels for quick physical access to source and destination routing, with convenient USB ports for IP address configuration. Plus, all models offer a web user interface accessible over the built-in Ethernet connection. KUMO 1616-12G and KUMO 3232-12G routers enable 4K and UltraHD routing on a single BNC for rates up to 12G.

About Io 4K Plus
Io 4K Plus  is a cutting-edge capture and output solution available over Thunderbolt 3, offering a full set of professional video and audio connectivity with support for the latest 4K/UltraHD devices, High Frame Rate, High Dynamic Range and deep color workflows. Thunderbolt connectivity enables Io 4K Plus to handle various formats from SD to HD, UltraHD and full 4K with frame rates up to 60p over both 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 via a single cable, plus HDR support over HDMI and SDI for the latest HDR workflows. Complementary AJA Desktop software releases are optimized for macOS, Windows, and Linux systems. www.aja.com/io-4k-plus

About AJA Video Systems
Since 1993, AJA Video Systems has been a leading manufacturer of cutting-edge technology for the broadcast, cinema, proAV, and post production markets. The company develops a range of flexible baseband and IP video/audio interface and conversion technologies, digital video recording solutions, and color management, streaming, and remote production tools. All AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com.

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AJA Media Contact:
Katie Weinberg
Raz Public Relations, LLC 
310-450-1482, aja@razpr.com