RNK NEWS RELEASE - ANNOUNCES OPERATIONS UPDATE
NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CANADIAN CORPORATE NEWS
FOR: RAINMAKER DIGITAL PICTURES CORP.
TSE, ME SYMBOL: RNK
APRIL 9, 1997
Rainmaker Announces Operations Update
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--Rainmaker would like to update its
shareholders on corporate developments during the first quarter.
Rainmaker recently completed film lab work, post & transfer
services, digital effects and compositing work for the Warner
Brothers title, Free Willy III. Rainmaker performed extensive
digital effects work for 66 shots of the movie. The movie Free
Willy III was a milestone for Rainmaker and the British Columbia
film industry, as it was the first Hollywood feature film ever to
be 100 percent completed in British Columbia.
On March 15, 1997, Rainmaker began post-production work on the new
MGM WorldWide episodic television series, STARGATE. The series
will be shot in various locations throughout the Vancouver area,
and is scheduled for 44 one-hour episodes over the next two years.
Next week, Rainmaker begins work on The Goodman Rosen Production
of POLICE ACADEMY, another television series scheduled for an
initial 26 one- hour episodes. Three other series in which
Rainmaker continues to provide post-production services for, The
X-Files, Outer Limits, and Millenium, have all been picked up by
major networks for another season.
As a result of increasing demand for post-production services in
western Canada, the Company has taken steps to increase its post-
production capacity at the Vancouver studio. Rainmaker's recent
capital investments include a new Quantel Henry V8 video effects
editing system (the first in western Canada), and a Cintel URSA
Gold telecine machine. The new Henry, a graphics editing and
compositing platform, is the platform in demand by Hollywood based
producers requiring high-end visual effects for both episodic
series and commercial television. The new telecine machine is
Rainmaker's sixth digital telecine, which increases the Company's
film transfer (film to tape) capacity by 20 percent, and will
provide the necessary hardware to meet the increasing demand for
Rainmaker's post and transfer services.
Rainmaker recently hired Mr. John Spires, a former Walt Disney
Company executive, to head Rainmaker's new Los Angeles based DVD
(Digital Videodisc) compression sales team, which is co-located
with Rainmaker's Los Angeles digital visual effects division. Mr.
Spires and his team will be responsible for marketing Rainmaker's
MPEG I proprietary digital video compression solutions, as well as
its MPEG II DVD compression services to American markets. The DVD
player was launched into the retail consumer sales market during
the last week of March, and sold nearly 19,000 units in that first
week. Industry experts are applauding the high number of unit
sales for the first week of DVD sales, considering that there is
currently a very limited selection of software available for the
DVD player. Sony's Columbia TriStar is set to be the next major
studio to follow Warner Bros. into the market when it releases a
handful of titles on DVD at the end of April.
Rainmaker Digital Pictures provides post-production services to
producers of feature films, television programs, and new media.
The Company operates fully integrated digital facilities in two of
North America's most vibrant filmmaking centres: Vancouver,
British Columbia, and Los Angeles, California. Rainmaker's Los
Angeles studio specializes in digital visual effects for the
Hollywood film- making community. Rainmaker's Vancouver facility
offers services including film-processing, film to video transfer,
video editing, digital visual effects, computer animation, MPEG
video compression and DVD interactive authoring. |
