Rainmaker Digital Pictures

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 are now used by Rainmaker Animation.

(1997-May 30, 2000; October 5, 2002-05)

Still 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 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 All of Me, The Shadow Riders, The Best of Times, Going Overboard, Frank and Jesse, Iron Eagle on the Attack, and Leprechaun in the Hood, as well as the Artisan/Republic DVDs of In Old California and Dark Command, the Concorde DVDs of Invisible Mom and No Dessert Dad 'Til You Mow the Lawn, the Palm Pictures DVD of One Love: The All-Star Bob Marley Tribute, the Mercury/Columbia TriStar DVD of Resurrection, and the 2002 Viz Video DVDs of Hamtaro: Hamtaro and the Ham-Hams and Ham-Hams Head Seaward. It was also seen in their 1997 demo reel, and at the start of the Image Entertainment DVD of Super Speedway. The still version appears on the Trimark DVD of Death Wish V: The Face of Death, the Artisan DVD of Weekend at Bernie's, the Republic DVDs of It's a Wonderful Life and Rio Grande, and the 2005 Viz Video reprint of Pokémon: Chrizard.

Rainmaker New Media (December 19-22, 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.

FX/SFX: 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: Ultra rare. This appears on the bonus disc of the second edition of DVD Demystified, and the 2000 Monterey Media DVD of An Evening with Edgar Allen Poe.