*Rainmaker storms commercial production

Rainmaker Digital Pictures has moved aggressively into commercial work. Vancouver’s largest visual effects house completed two entirely computer-generated spots for Payless Shoe Source for Kansas City-based agency Barkley Evergreen & Partners. The shop modeled a cartoon-like flying 3D stork that drops cg baby shoes out of its pouch only to have the shoes bounce into place as part of the Payless logo. Barkley, Evergreen & Partners also hired Rainmaker’s animation team to create a detailed build and camera fly-through of the new ATV Shock from Monroe Shocks.

Meanwhile, the shop completed Inferno work on a Knorr soup campaign for Sydney-based Dragonslayer Productions and Ogilvy & Mather (Dusseldorf). Rainmaker compositor Rosano Lepri, with exacting detail, matched the product packaging with a live-action shot of steaming soup on a spoon.

Rainmaker is also busy creating a bouncing cg Hopscotch Heather doll, as well as a big-top circus tent for Hasbro Toys’ ‘Oddzon’ spot. Both jobs are from Cincinnati-based Playground Advertising.

To round out the advertising slate, Rainmaker is creating talking animals for mts, Manitoba’s telephone company. Animator Winston Helgason is creating cg mouths, chins, and upper torsos, which will be texture mapped with still images of fur and then tracked and composited in the Inferno by digital artist Stephen Pepper. Cossette Communications is the agency.

In series work, Rainmaker has just completed the final show of the third season of mgm’s Stargate SG-1, for which hundreds of scattering and swarming cg bugs were created. The effects team is also busy with the Sugar Entertainment mow Out of Time and the major season finale of So Weird. Rainmaker is also working on a number of shots for the mow Mermaid, featuring a cg Mylar balloon composited into aerial background plates.

Rainmaker’s lab and telecine division has just wrapped work on the features The Company Man, They Nest and Bear With Me.

Post services continue for the series Outer Limits, Higher Ground, Call of the Wild and mow A Lucky Shot.

*C.O.R.E. gets Snow job

C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures recently completed work on Paramount Pictures’ feature Snow Day, scheduled for release on Feb. 11. Bob Munroe headed up the animation team, which included Nordin Rahhali, Brian Smeets, Howard Cassidy and Tracey Vaz as the paint artist.

The Toronto-based visual effects shop also completed twinning work on the mow Cover Girls, set to run March 12 on abc’s Wonderful World of Disney. Claude Theriault was the animation director working with Lisa Carr-Harris, Tracey Vaz, Nick Hsieh, Maria Gordon and Alphonso Young.

In feature film work, animation director John Mariella is busy with Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Men and Universal’s Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Munroe is animation director on the New Line Cinema feature Knockaround Guys. Bret Culp continues as animation director on Thomas and the Magic Railroad for Gullane Pictures and Destination Films.

In tv work, c.o.r.e.’s suites are singing with The Sandy Bottom Orchestra (Dufferin Gate/Showtime), Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (Alliance Atlantis), Angela Anaconda (decode/c.o.r.e.), The Four Seasons (Rhombus Media) and Leparello (Rhombus).

*GVFX shrinks and sinks

Gajdecki Visual Effects – based in Vancouver and Toronto – has a full slate of work including series, mows and features.

Feature assignments include extensive miniature work, compositing and 2D animation effects out of Toronto for Thomas and the Magic Railroad. Dave Axford and Sasha Jarh are the in-house vfx supervisors and Sue Reid is vfx coordinator. Also on the feature slate are Bruiser, with Jon Campfens handling duties as vfx supervisor and Nancy McCreight as vfx coordinator and Urban Legend II: The Final Cut , assigned to vfx supervisor Mark Savela and vfx coordinator McCreight. In Vancouver, the shop is handling the playback graphic for the Arnold Schwarzenegger project On the Sixth Day.

In mow work, the shop created a quarter-scale miniature for the Alliance Atlantis Television production Sinkhole; matte paintings and 3D animated additions for the Gatsby mansion on The Great Gatsby; and matte paintings and 3D for Nero Wolfe. Other mows are A Winter’s Tale and Thin Air.

Series projects have the organization working hard at Stargate SG-1, Higher Ground, Relic Hunter and Twice in a Lifetime. The Vancouver and Toronto offices split effects assignments on the four-hour Columbia TriStar miniseries Sole Survivor.

*Eyes Post courts controversy

Eyes Post recently finished work on two controversial stories, both of which made headlines around the world.

The Toronto-based post house did the rushes, film transfers, final film transfers in pal and final version editing for pal and ntsc for the USA Network production of The Mary Kay Letourneau Story: All-American Girl. The mow is the true story of a 35-year-old married school teacher who had an affair with one of her 13-year-old students. The film stars Penelope Ann Miller, Omar Anguiano and Mercedes Ruehl.

The shop also completed work on Lions Gate Entertainment’s American Psycho, based on the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Eyes completed the rushes film transfer, final film transfer and some editing. American Psycho premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

*Lost Boys game for Rock the Rink

Out Vancouver way, Lost Boys Studios has allied itself with music video director Bill Morrison who has taken up directing video games. To that end, the shop is handling opening and closing sequences for the genre-bending hockey game Rock the Rink. Lost Boys animators are creating a hockey rink and environment along with modeling 3D fans to create crowds in the stands.