Mainframe Entertainment

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
/wiki/Mainframe Entertainmentcreator

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, ReBoot. 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 ReBoot 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 ReBoot 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.

ReBoot 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 ReBoot, while Rainmaker itself is known for doing special effects for Live Action TV.

Notable Shows and other projects produced by Mainframe:

Notable Projects through Rainmaker include:

Post Production work (through Rainmaker) includes:

Mainframe Entertainment provides examples of the following tropes:
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Mainframe_Entertainment?oldid=1706039"