Vancouver post-production and visual effects house Rainmaker Digital Pictures reports it has been ‘firing on all cylinders’ throughout the summer, benefiting from the many medium-budget Hollywood features that have recently shot in town.

Productions passing through its lab include: the Lions Gate Films releases Ignition, starring Bill Pullman as a bodyguard who discovers a plot to overthrow the u.s. government, and Kevin of the North, a comedy about dogsled racing with Skeet Ulrich; Columbia Pictures’ Saving Silverman, a romantic comedy featuring American Pie’s Jason Biggs; Warner Bros.’ comedy See Spot Run, about an fbi dog marked for assassination, starring David Arquette; Valentine, also from Warner, a ‘romantic’ tale of revenge and murder; and mgm’s Antitrust, a thriller starring Tim Robbins as a nefarious Silicon Valley mogul.

For the last project, Rainmaker visual effects supervisor Simon Lacey worked with his animators and compositors on a major sequence involving ‘intelligent paintings,’ canvases which dissolve from one painting to another to match the particular tastes of individuals in the room.

Lacey collaborated on the project with Patrick Shearn, a visual effects supervisor from Los Angeles, and Zach Staenberg, the Oscar-winning editor who cut The Matrix. Rainmaker was on set for the filming of scenes with green-screen canvases as well as references of the actual paintings, which were later delivered to them as single-frame scanned images. The final effect was achieved through the compositing of various passes in Rainmaker’s Discreet Inferno.

‘We start with the two images as an a and b side,’ Lacey explains. ‘We’re pulling a matte for those images and creating particle animation, looking at the colors and shapes within the paintings to decide how the colors are going to shift.’

In some cases shots were executed with certain paintings in the background that director Peter Howitt later wanted to replace, which called for rotoscoping. This procedure – the separation of one image from the background plate – was accomplished with Avid Softimage Elastic Reality.

Lacey says the biggest challenge with the intelligent paintings was to keep the effect elegant.

‘We didn’t want any of these canvases to be seen as lcd monitors or anything in that vein, so the resolution had to be very high and we had to avoid a lot of tricks we might have used otherwise – what might be considered ‘burn-in’ images. You’ll see [the dissolves] as though the ink from the painting is kind of bleeding and shifting in position and then reconfiguring itself, both in color and shape, into the other painting.’

Another recent project Rainmaker is excited about is Warner Bros.’ 3,000 Miles to Graceland, the Kevin Costner-Kurt Russell casino heist thriller.

‘They approached us to do some visual effects work and the title sequence,’ Lacey says. ‘We have a whole group here that’s been focusing on doing the titles. It’s about three minutes of computer animation, and it’s looking to be very spectacular.’

Serious series work

Series work has long been the bread and butter of the b.c. industry, and Rainmaker, founded in 1979, continues its association with returning tv series such as mgm’s Stargate SG-1 (in its fourth season) and Keatley MacLeod Productions/Alliance Atlantis Communications’ Cold Squad. The post house has also taken on new programs of note, including the Showtime/Dufferin Gate tv biz satire Beggars and Choosers, for which it is doing full post and effects.

Lacey did visual effects for an episode of Beggars and Choosers titled ‘Be Careful What You Wish For,’ directed by actress Helen Shaver.

‘I had worked with her on Poltergeist: The Legacy, which was famous for all its ghosts, and she showed up on this comedy series, and it was an episode that involved ghosts,’ he recounts. ‘We had a good laugh about that.’

Shaver and the visual effects team came up with various looks for the pair of phantoms, which appear in two scenes.

‘For one, it’s a semi-transparent character with a bit of a glow,’ Lacey says. ‘We added some glints on some of the props he’s holding. Then we did one shot in which he disappears. We shot him on green screen, composited him into the scene as a solid object, and had him walk through a wall, and then slowly melt away and disappear.’

For the ghost effects, Rainmaker used its Jaleo system. Lacey believes Jaleo handles green-screen work well, and he is particularly fond of its keying system.

‘It was felt we could accomplish it pretty easily [with Jaleo], plus it’s a slightly lower rate to use, and for Beggars and Choosers, their concern was budgetary.’

Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, the forthcoming Tribune Entertainment/Fireworks Entertainment sci-fi series, is so effects-heavy that several local shops have been brought on board – primarily cross-town competitor Lost Boys Studios. Rainmaker’s cg staff is hard at work constructing what it describes as ‘spacecraft and other intergalactic paraphernalia’ for the program.

The impact of high-definition origination is starting to be felt in the world of mows, and Rainmaker feels it is prepared for the deluge sure to come. Its new hdtv post facilities are in place and it is already prepping several projects for hd delivery, including the cbs movie Love Lessons, starring Patty Duke as a 50-year-old woman who discovers she is pregnant, and Fox Television’s Faithful Traveler.

The Fireworks/hbo telefilm Blacktop marks Rainmaker’s first full-length, full-finish hd project. The company provided telecine, online editing and finishing services, hd titles and hosted the preview screening at its hd-equipped theatre.

Lots o’ spots

Mexico-based Aqua Films has sought Rainmaker’s services again for a commercial for Cheetos cheese-flavored snacks. The two companies collaborated earlier on another Frito-Lay project, a Matrix-like ad for the Central American, South American and Asian markets, which launched Doritos 3-D chips. The new spot is a tie-in with Disney’s blockbuster feature Dinosaur.

The spot, which combines animation and live-action footage, features a throng of energetic youths playing a dino-sized version of pogs in an all-cg prehistoric set created by animator Sylvain Huard.

Not only is Rainmaker seeing large volumes of business pass through its doors, it is also doing well on the awards circuit. It was a nominee at the 2000 Monitor Awards, presented by its, an association of the international post-production industry, held July 15 in Los Angeles. The nod was for its work on the Pacific Motion Pictures/ Hallmark Entertainment miniseries Aftershock: Earthquake in New York, which aired on cbs in November 1999.

Rainmaker calls its work on the four-hour drama its largest visual effects endeavor to date. It took the shop more than a year to achieve the miniseries’ 300-plus effects shots, most of which feature nyc’s most famous landmarks crumbling to the ground during a major earthquake. Rainmaker also provided all lab, telecine and post services for the show.

Rainmaker’s visual effects for Aftershock also garnered a nomination at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards in l.a., Aug. 26. Likewise, the ‘Nemesis’ episode of Stargate SG-1, whose effects the shop created under the direction of effects supervisor James Tichenor, was also nominated. Rainmaker was represented at the event by senior animator Jim Hebb and senior compositor Bruce Woloshyn, both of whom worked on the nominated projects.

Although an awards ballot can only recognize a few names, Rainmaker president Bob Scarabelli insists on spreading the glory.

‘Aftershock really represents an incredible team effort at every level and in every department of the [150 staff member] company,’ Scarabelli says. ‘Given the size and scope of this project, it truly was a case in which every person had involvement with it at some stage and can feel proud of the accomplishment.’

With b.c. production bursting at the seams, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the post houses to bring in enough staff to meet their current workload, especially in the area of visual effects.

According to Tracey Friesen, Rainmaker’s director of industry relations, ‘A computer animator, compositor or designer needs to be technically proficient, personally presentable, a good communicator and an exceptional artist. These are rare birds!’

In search of such exotic fowl, Rainmaker in May launched its Digital Design Internship program, arranged in conjunction with local post-secondary institutions offering film and tv programs, many of which specialize in the computer animation and visual effects fields. Friesen explains that prior to the new initiative the company found it difficult to partner up with school co-op programs due to scheduling conflicts. This time, she says, Rainmaker is ready.

‘We designed a co-op-style program tailored very specifically to our production cycle and our business needs, a program that would give Rainmaker a first look at the best and brightest new talent coming out of the local schools and would also provide a meaningful learning experience for the artist.’

The internship program was facilitated by the involvement of the National Research Council’s Technology Enhancement Program, whose mandate is to strengthen the technical capabilities of Canadian companies and workers through tech assistance and funding support.

The program offers students and recent graduates an intensive month-long work placement in Rainmaker’s art department, involving them in website development, visual effects production and animation assistance. Senior Rainmaker artists working on major film and tv projects will be mentors to the interns.

Potential candidates for the internship will be culled from students of co-operating post-secondary institutions recommended by their teachers. Reaction to the initiative has been positive from some of the province’s premier film schools.

‘This program presents an opportunity for our students to get an excellent introduction into a company that is recognized as a leader in the field,’ says Gary Bourgeois, program director of new media studies at Vancouver Film School.

The first placement was in May, and a new intern will be brought in approximately every two months. *

-www.rainmaker.com