Vancouver: In the second quarter of fiscal ’98, Rainmaker Entertainment Group is back in the black, pushed by strong growth in its visual effects and new media departments.

For the quarter ended June 30, net earnings were $496,000 ($0.05 per share) on revenue of $7.3 million, an improvement of 31% compared to the same quarter last year.

Net earnings for the period dropped about 3% for the quarter compared to the same period in 1997, due mainly to slow post-production activity in Los Angeles where Rainmaker has a satellite office that recently worked on Paramount features A Simple Plan and Star Trek 9 and Touchstone’s Armageddon.

However, revenues for the company’s second quarter were driven up by an 80% improvement in the digital visual effects department and a 154% increase in the new media department, both located in Vancouver.

Revenues from digital visual effects work on series such as Welcome to Paradox, The Crow and Strange World jumped to $3.2 million compared to the tally of $1.8 million for the same period last year, while the much smaller new media division (dvd compression and encoding services, for example) recorded its first profitable quarter with revenues of $506,000.

Year-to-date tallies show that revenue has improved 10% in the first six months of fiscal ’98 to $12.6 million compared to the same period last year, but net earnings are off by 63% to $513,000 ($0.05 per share), which reflects the company’s lackluster first quarter of fiscal ’98.