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Zoic marries green with healthy C ULVER CITY, CA — Zoic Studios (www.zoicstudios.com), which specializes in VFX for commercials, television and film, has a mission, says CFO/COO Tim McBride, to be "both green and healthy." The studio has a number of efforts in place, and visitors to its LA studio will notice some of them immediately — like when they come upon the company's Zoic-branded bicycles at the front entrance. "I'm sure it saves a little bit on the planet by having bikes, but I also see it as green married together with morale and healthiness," says McBride. "The concept was to have a hip look and appearance, but it's healthy too. We happen to be in the post business, where we sit at our desks and work in dark rooms, so it's nice to have the opportunity to get our butts outside and hear the birds chirp and smell the grass." When it comes to gear, Zoic participates in local e-cycling programs when needed, helping to keep old electronics out of landfills. For still usable equipment that might not make the cut for client work, they will donate it to local charities and area schools. From a consumption standpoint, Zoic has worked to do away with snacks and junk food packaged in individual wrappers. Instead, the company buys healthy items in bulk and makes them available to staffers via canisters. The staff, says McBride, has been pretty receptive to the studio's efforts. "I think we are generous in the food and beverages we offer, the free breakfast, and the ability to make lunch," he notes. The only resistance came in doing away with bottled water, he recalls. "There was a little bit of snickering," he says of the change to filtered water and reusable glasses. "Everybody loved to have their bottle of water that they'd carry with them and then put down. But, it kills you to find a bottle that's been left with only a few sips taken." McBride doesn't see Zoic's efforts as being much different than many other studios in the post business. "We looked around at ways to improve without going overboard," he says. The effort extends to Zoic's location in Vancouver too. 'Green' is part of Nvidia's company fabric S AN JOSE, CA — Nvidia, which specializes in developing powerful GPUs that can power high-end graphics and animation applications, has a num- ber of green efforts in place. "Sensitivity to environmental concerns is woven into every aspect of Nvidia's global enterprise, from facilities operations to product design," notes Greg Estes, VP of marketing for Nvidia Pro Visualization. "In fact, Nvidia was ranked as the sixth greenest company in the country in Newsweek's last survey. Whether we are engineering systems to deliver high-end graphics applications through the cloud or designing GPU architectures that enable the creation of groundbreaking visual effects in movies like Gravity, improving energy efficiency is a principle goal in our R&D efforts. In fact, the Quadro K6000, our highest performing GPU, is over 20 percent more power efficient than its closest competitive product. And for many, power efficiency is another important consideration when deter- mining the right graphics card." Estes points to "The Green500," which lists the world's most energy-efficient supercomputers. The top 10 systems are all powered by Nvidia Tesla GPUs (www.green500.org/lists/green201311). The company also uses blogs so discuss its efforts (www.nvidia.com/object/fy13-gcr-design- advances.html). Nvidia's next generation GPU family, named Pascal, will roll out in 2016 and is said to "quadruple energy efficiency." Nvidia's global enterprise, from facilities operations to product design," notes Greg Estes, VP of marketing for Nvidia Pro Visualization. "In fact, Nvidia was ranked as the sixth greenest company in the country in Newsweek's last survey. Whether we are engineering systems to deliver high-end graphics applications through the cloud or designing GPU architectures that enable the creation of groundbreaking , improving energy its closest competitive product. And for many, power efficiency is another important consideration when deter- efficiency is another important consideration when deter- efficiency is another important consideration when deter Zoic's bikes and recycling bins fall into their "green and healthy" mantra. www.postmagazine.com Post • May 2014 37 Reel FX partners with Canopy Project D ALLAS — Reel FX (www.reelfx.com), a studio that works on spots, animated features and mobile apps, recently launched an online Web store called Get Reel Goods (http:// getreelgoods.com) and teamed up with The Canopy Project (www.earthday.org) for Earth Day to sell donated, designer t-shirts. The shirts were all screen printed at the facility using recycled, water-based ink. Every dollar that they receive from the sale of items is being donated to The Canopy Project, which plants trees in impoverished communities, helping to prevent land degradation and provide food, energy and income. For each dollar collected, one tree is planted. In addition, when the T-shirts are shipped from the studio, the order includes a pack of wild- flower seeds that buyers can plant. ChARLIE STOUGh (PhOTO COURTESy OF SUGAR FIX PRODUCTIONS). LA-based EcoSet (http://ecosetconsulting.com) helps find new applications for set materials after a production has wrapped, keeping them out of land- fills. EcoSet's Materials Oasis is a place where non- profits, artists, schools and individuals can go to pick up materials at no cost.