Rainmaker Digital Effects

Background

Rainmaker Digital Effects (also known as Rainmaker Digital Pictures or just Rainmaker) was an artist-driven company located in both Burbank, California and Vancouver, British Columbia, specializing in visual effects and DVD encoding such as the Phoenix Pictures logo. While now defunct, its name, location and logo were adopted by Rainmaker Entertainment (now Mainframe Studios) in 2007 and used until 2020.

1st Logo (1997-1999)

Logo: A spark flies out on a black background and explodes, revealing several rounded squares that flash out light and move around. The background lights up, revealing a stone-age rocky surface that flashes orange (a la a fire) and the squares being on a filmstrip forming a stylized spiral. A spark flies onto the filmstrip, turning it into solid gold and it is placed against a stylized hand outline, with a tilted, rough line below it. After a few seconds, the spiral shoots out light and becomes the familiar "DVD" logo. After a few more seconds, the design fades out and the text "rainmaker", which is in a font a la the Sundance logo, fades in, with "DIGITAL PICTURES" in a different font below it.

Variants:

On the demo reel, after the hand is formed, it simply fades to the text with additional phone numbers for their 2 locations.
A still version exists where the hand is a olive green and the line and text are white. There are particles everywhere, mostly surrounding the hand. "encoding and authoring by" also appears above the logo.

Technique: Everything in very nice CGI using Alias Wavefront PowerAnimator.

Music/Sounds: Several whooshing and blazing noises, followed by a long orchestral/choir note. More blazing and a "ding" is heard when the circle design changes. After a few seconds, a drumbeat is heard with the text fading it., followed by one last whoosh and another string note.

Availability: Seen at the end of some Trimark Pictures DVD releases, such as All of Me, The Shadow Riders and The Best of Times. It was also seen in their 1997 demo reel, and randomly appeared at the start of the Image Entertainment DVD of Super Speedway. The still version appears on the Artisan Entertainment DVD of Weekend at Bernie's and the Republic Pictures DVD of Rio Grande.

2nd Logo (2000)

Logo: On a black background, a wave of electricity appears in the shape of the Rainmaker hand symbol. All of a sudden, a new background (a mountainous landscape with a very cloudy sky and rain) and the outlines that form the Rainmaker symbol appear. The spiral inside the symbol then shoots out lightning which forms the Rainmaker text in the same font as before (albeit less spaced out and larger), along with "new media" in an Arial font below it. After forming the text, the lightning goes back to the left of the Rainmaker text before it disappears. The finished product then stays for a bit before fading out.

Technique: Computer animation and effects.

Music/Sounds: A collection of thunder sounds, raining and electrical buzzing which play throughout the logo with the respective actions going on.

Availability: Rare, bordering on lost. The only place this has been spotted on is the bonus disc which comes as a bonus on the second edition of DVD Demystified.