Rainmaker Digital Effects

Logo descriptions by CooleyBoy10 Video captures courtesy of ThePreviewsGuy DVDOpenings

Background: Rainmaker Digital Pictures was an artist-driven company located in both Burbank, California and Vancouver, British Columbia, specializing in visual effects and DVD encoding. While now defunct, its name and logo is now used by Rainmaker Animation.

(Late 1990s) Rainmaker Digital Pictures (early version)

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 yellow 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. FX/SFX: Everything in very nice CGI.

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 drum note is heard, followed by one last whoosh and another string note.

Availability: Seen at the end of some Trimark DVD releases, such as Shadow Riders. It was also seen in their 1997 demo reel.

Editor's Note: None.