Rainmaker has formally opened the doors to a new London facility, with no less than The Da Vinci Code as its inaugural project.

The Vancouver-based post-production company launched Rainmaker Animation and Visual Effects U.K. last October, shortly after signing on to work on the Sony Pictures blockbuster. The new outlet's 11 CG artists, compositors and other staff contributed 43 shots to the picture, including a flashback sequence and a recreation of the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris.

The Ron Howard-helmed thriller stars Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou in the adaptation of the Dan Brown bestseller about the discovery of what could be a central cover-up in the Christian faith. The film opened May 19 to a box office of US$77 million in North America, and US$232 million worldwide - the second-largest international opening ever, behind Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.

According to Warren Franklin, president of Rainmaker's animation and effects operations, it was Da Vinci VFX supervisor Angus Bickerton who helped the shop win the plum assignment.

"We were doing some work with Angus on another project. [He] saw the VFX we had done for a number of films, including Firewall," Franklin recalls, referring to the recent Vancouver-shot Harrison Ford thriller.

"We did a test for him to show how we could do the VFX for The Da Vinci Code," he continues. "He showed the test to Ron Howard and [executive producer] Todd Hallowell. They were really impressed, and thought we would be the right people to do the job."

For Franklin, it was a chance to renew an old Hollywood friendship. "When I was at Industrial Light & Magic, I worked with Ron Howard on Willow, Backdraft and Cocoon," he explains. "So I knew that Ron was really great to work with."

U.K. post houses The Motion Picture Company, Double Negative and The Senate Visual Effects also contributed sequences to the film.

"London has become a major visual effects center," says Rainmaker VFX supervisor Adam Gascoyne. "It's second only to L.A. in terms of projects, so it's a place we need to be. Besides, there's a lot of really good talent available in London."

The Da Vinci Code shot throughout the U.K. and France, but the production did not necessarily have access to all the locations it needed.

"The most challenging aspect was when we were asked to recreate the interior of Saint-Sulpice from the floor up," says Franklin. "Since the Catholic Church was not interested in letting us film there, we had to covertly take reference shots inside the church to get the detail we needed for the VFX. It ended up being an espionage mission for our people, which was in keeping with the tone of The Da Vinci Code."

Rainmaker's CG interior shot, realized with LightWave 8, Photoshop and 2d3 boujou, was later combined with live-action footage filmed at the U.K.'s Shepperton Studios. For compositing, the actors were shot in front of a 360-degree green screen, and the elements were later married using Digital Fusion 4 software.

"We typically could have built a virtual church, but what we did in the end was to combine CG technology with still photography," adds Rainmaker VFX supervisor Mark Breakspear. "I call it 'projection geometry.' Based on numerous reference photos [shot with a Canon EOS-1DS Mark II camera] and our experience of being in the church, we were able to create and totally rebuild the environment."

All told, Rainmaker U.K. had three staff working on CG, four on compositing, and the other four in management.

Bickerton has nothing but praise for Rainmaker's efforts. "Everything went exactly as planned," he says. "They did a flawless job."

Hot on the heels of having worked on the film of the moment, Rainmaker U.K. is currently busy with the Pierce Brosnan thriller Butterfly on a Wheel, with the operation being overseen by Gascoyne. The Canada/U.K. copro, involving Vancouver's Infinity Features, was slated to wrap in B.C. in early May.

www.rainmaker.com

www.sonypictures.com/movies/thedavincicode