CULVER CITY, CA — Zoic Studios, which has locations here and in Vancouver, has added Matt Thunell as executive producer of their commercial and games division. With over 12 years of experience at leading VFX and creative studios, Thunell has worked on commercials, features, music videos, special venue projects and interactive media.
Zoic recently worked on Intel & Toshiba’s success social film The Power Inside, and brought on Thunell to bolster the commercial and games division, as well as to grow the team for upcoming projects. The studio has an international Nissan campaign in the works, as well as a motion graphics installation for Sea World.
“Going back to the early Joss Whedon days of Buffy and Firefly, I’ve always been a fan of Zoic,” says Thunell. “More recently, I’ve admired the studio’s R&D efforts in the convergence of traditional visual effects and video game engines. I love to geek out and opine on the future of post and tech — and what I appreciate most about co-founders Loni Peristere and Chris Jones is how they always steer that conversation in service of storytelling.”
A UC Berkeley film grad, Thunell got hooked on all things VFX as an intern at Lucasfilm. He securing a position at ILM, where he got his feet wet on such notable projects as Terminator 3 and Hulk. In 2003, he landed a gig as VFX coordinator at The Orphanage in San Francisco, where he spent three years with the company, working on high-profile features such as Superman Returns, Hellboy and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
In 2006, he headed to LA, where he worked as senior producer at Radium/Reel FX, stewarding a wide range of projects, from notable commercial campaigns and music videos to major feature projects. He next shifted to producing design and CG-heavy projects for Motion Theory/Mirada before building the newly launched Whitehouse partner VFX facility, Carbon VFX as executive producer. While there, he sourced creative talent, developed infrastructure and managed commercial campaigns.