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Rainmaker Produces Splinter Cell: Conviction

Press Release from Rainmaker Entertainment

Vancouver, BC -- June 29, 2009 -- Rainmaker Entertainment announced today that it created and produced the game trailer for Ubisoft's "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction," which was named 'Best of E3 360 Game' by 1up.com, 'Best Xbox 360 Game' by GameFocus.ca, 'Best Xbox 360 Title' by Goonline.com, 'Best of PC E3 2009 Awards' by IGN.com and nominated for 'Best of Show' and 'Best Action/Adventure Game' by the Game Critics Awards. The fifth game in the Splinter Cell series is a tentpole franchise for game giant Ubisoft, the Paris headquartered publisher and developer. The series, an action stealth game, is based on the Tom Clancy novels and lead character Sam Fisher. The trailer garnered a 9.2 rating on GameTrailer.com.

"We approached this project as storytellers," states Catherine Winder, Rainmaker's President. "When the Splinter Cell: Conviction development team at Ubisoft Montreal came to us and wanted a 'wow' factor for this trailer, we totally immersed ourselves in the game and developed the overall concept and script," continues Winder. "We then edited together various footage with character tests, and when we pitched the concept and reel, Ubisoft liked what they saw and entrusted us with one of their highest selling games."

Shea Wageman, Rainmaker's Director, Producer on the project adds, "Ubisoft wanted to give Sam Fisher more character and emotional depth. Our mission was 'to give Sam a soul.' They wanted us to create a fully realized cinematic character in order to put him on par with the complexity of Jason Bourne or James Bond." Wageman continues, "It meant we had to deal with photoreal CGI facial and eye movements, and in very constrained time frame. We studied various live action and CG films to understand what truly denotes emotion, and it really comes down to the eyes and subtle facial movements."

Rainmaker was responsible for concept and design, art direction and storyboarding. Primary characters were provided by Ubisoft which Rainmaker uprezzed. Mo-cap was done at Rainmaker's motion capture stage. The Rainmaker team rebuilt all the geometry and created the shading, textures, rigging and facial movements for the primary characters. All the sets and secondary and background characters, as well as all the animation, lighting, visual effects and compositing, was done by Rainmaker. Concept and creative took three months and production five months.

Winder concludes, "Our team was excited to have this opportunity and energized by the challenge. We're looking forward to doing more in this highly creative realm."

Ubisoft's 'Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction' will be released fall 2009 on Xbox 360 and PC.

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