Catherine Winder, a former Lucasfilm Animation Executive Producer for "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", has been named President, along with a number of other additions to the management of Vancouver's Rainmaker Entertainment Inc., according to Warren Franklin, CEO of Rainmaker Entertainment.
Winder produced both the Cartoon Network series "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", as well as the animated feature version released by Warner Bros. in 2008.
"I couldn't be more pleased to have Catherine join us as Rainmaker further positions itself to build its creative infrastructure to develop and produce its own family content and expand its service based business," said Franklin."Catherine is an executive whose track record I’ve greatly admired and it's very exciting for Rainmaker to have someone with her inventive creativity, broad animation experience and production depth to lead our team."
"I'm thrilled to be at the helm as we refocus and reinvigorate the studio toward family-oriented content in a wide variety of genres, in addition to continuing our successful service based business", said Winder."Building on the great work that has been done over the years, Rainmaker, formerly Mainframe, has a talent base and innovative pipeline that is well poised to re-position itself and regain its place as a leader in our industry...As we proceed with all the pipeline improvements already underway, we envision our future to be very bright.”
One of Winder’s first new steps at Rainmaker is the production of the original short feature animation project "Luna", based on a concept from in-house producer Luke Carroll, directed by Pixar alumnus Jon Mead. The film will start production this summer.
Prior to Rainmaker, Winder was Senior Vice President of Production at Fox Feature Animation, where she oversaw Oscar-nominated "Ice Age" and produced genre TV series "Spawn" for HBO and "Aeon Flux" for MTV.
Currently in production at Rainmaker is "Escape From Planet Earth", a theatrical feature with The Weinstein Company and new installments of Mattel's "Barbie" and "Max Steel" franchises. Rainmaker is also in the process of developing "ReBoot" into a family friendly series of feature projects.Rainmaker Entertainment Inc. is one of Canada’s largest producers of CG animation. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the studio employs over 250 people.
Originally established in 1993 as Mainframe Entertainment, Rainmaker has produced many feature length DVDs, game cinematics and television shows based on top international brands such as "Barbie", "Max Steel", "Casper", "Popeye", "Tony Hawk", "Stuart Little", "Hot Wheels", "Spider-Man" and "Inspector Gadget".
Clients include Mattel, The Weinstein Company, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Sony, Electronic Arts and MTV....
