Mainframe Entertainment

Mainframe Entertainment is a Vancouver, British Columbia based computer animation studio, specifying mostly in animated shows and Direct to Video movies.

Established by Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson, both English born, the company was founded with the intent of creating the first computer animated show, Re Boot. Prior to that, the two were known mostly for providing the computer animation for the rock band Dire Straits music video "Money For Nothing."

The production of Re Boot was troublesome because the amount of money going into a project like this required an entire animation studio to be built. This meant that they needed to start with a full season or nothing. Unlike other animated shows where they produce a concept pilot to try and sell the series, the money for equipment and business space was much higher.

When Re Boot became a hit, Mainframe became a hot item to produce Merchandise-Driven series, most notably reviving the struggling Transformers brand with Beast Wars. Beast Wars was an even bigger hit because it came with built-in fanbase. The story quality, voice acting, and CGI were all top notch.

The animation of their early seasons appear to be primitive, especially considering Pixar's groundbreaking work for Toy Story at the same time. But it should be considered that they were still the first people to get it out in the open.

Re Boot remained their favorite baby and they rejoiced when they were able to continue the series in 2001. When the show ended again, this time it seemed for good because Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson left the company to pursue other projects.

Unfortunately, this was also one of the turning points when the company began to fall into trouble. The Merchandise-Driven shows fell into less competent hands and were not nearly as popular as Beast Wars. They barely managed to stay afloat with Direct-To-Video franchises like the Barbie series, but it fell apart and in 2007, the company was bought out by Rainmaker Entertainment. They plan on keeping the Mainframe studio to use for entirely animated productions, including a highly possible revival of Re Boot, while Rainmaker itself is known for doing special effects for Live Action TV.

Notable Shows and other projects produced by Mainframe:
 * Re Boot
 * Beast Wars and Beast Machines
 * Hot Wheels:World Race and Hot Wheels:Acceleracers
 * Shadow Raiders / War Planets
 * Weird-Ohs
 * Action Man
 * Max Steel (Third season only)
 * The MTV Spider Man series
 * The "Barbie and the..." DTVs

Notable Projects through Rainmaker include:
 * Stargate SG 1
 * Stargate Atlantis
 * Armageddon
 * Dead Like Me
 * Titanic
 * Jack Frost 1998 (the Family film, not the killer snowman film)
 * Mr. Magoo (Live Action Adaptation)
 * Millennium
 * The Outer Limits (1995 Revival)
 * Supernova
 * Dark Angel
 * Andromeda
 * Smallville
 * Three Thousand Miles to Graceland
 * Ballistic Ecks vs. Sever
 * I Robot
 * Kingdom Hospital
 * Tropic Thunder
 * Fred Claus

Post Production work (through Rainmaker) includes:
 * Dragonball (1995 dub)
 * Godzilla
 * So Weird
 * Millennium
 * The Outer Limits
 * Stargate SG-1
 * Stargate Atlantis
 * Mission to Mars
 * Final Destination
 * Patlabor (Movies only)
 * Da Vincis Inquest
 * Ballistic Ecks vs. Sever
 * Dead Like Me
 * Tru Calling
 * Cold Squad (Several episodes)
 * Masters of Horror

Other tropes
 * All CGI Cartoon: Their specialty after all.
 * Art Evolution - Reflected in all of their shows whenever they improved their hardware.
 * Conspicuous CG - An odd example in Beast Wars; despite it being a fully CG cartoon.
 * Doing It for The Art - Early on, even the Merchandise-Driven shows like Beast Wars and War Planets were well plotted and well received. Action Man ended up becoming an adversion, although the recent Reboot revival shows promise.
 * Hey It's That Voice - The Ocean Group worked on many of their series (ex: Matrix from Re Boot and Graveheart from War Planets were both voice by Paul Dobson).
 * No Flow in CGI
 * Spiritual Successor - Storm Hawks isn't produced by Mainframe, but has some of the same talent working on it.
 * Talking to Himself - Most shows. Scott McNeil voiced no less then four characters alone on Beast Wars.