As one of the co-founders of Unified Pictures, Kurt Rauer offers a wealth of experience and expertise in many aspects of film production.
Through his education in architectural 3D rendering, Kurt Rauer discovered a talent and enthusiasm for digital animation. After several years of success in the architecture industry, Rauer took a partnership in the video game company Frontline in 1994.
At the time, Frontline was creating "Metalwerks," a game well known inside the industry for being beyond the cutting edge of technology of its time. In addition to the technological and creative duties Rauer performed as a digital effects and content creator, he also served Frontline as a line-producer, overseeing budgets and front-end bookkeeping.
Kurt and his team won the 1996 ACM/Siggraph Award for best animated story on Metalwerks. Metalwerks was subsequently acquired by Electronic Arts until, in a rather backhanded appreciation of Rauer's work, congress brought up Metalwerks in hearings regarding potential government censorship of the videogame industry as an example of how gaming technology was becoming immersive enough to be considered dangerous. As part of the video game industry's settlement into self-regulation, Electronic Arts shelved the game permanently.
Rauer went on to work as producer and lead animator for animation company Riveted Studios and then video game publisher Interplay, handling an impressive client base that included Sony, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, and 3DO. Rauer headed teams and provided effects and animation sequences on the high-profile video game adaptation of the extremely popular "Spawn" comics and the cross-platform hit title "Army Men" for Riveted as well as the flagship Star Trek title "Klingon Academy" for Interplay.
In 2000, Kurt was lured from Interplay by the promise of internet science-fiction content and a dot-com startup called Galaxy Online. There, he renewed his collaboration with Frontline co-worker Tim Montijo and met future Unified Pictures co-president Keith Kjarval. At Galaxy, Kurt was given the opportunity to head a think-tank and mini-studio called Galactic Labs.
Soon thereafter, Rauer and Montijo went into business for themselves, founding an animation/digital effects company called ElectroAge Studios. In addition to an ongoing Motorola contract, they performed as digital development artists on a number of high-profile feature films. For their work on the Super Bowl, ElectroAge was nominated and won the coveted Emmy Award.
In 2004, ElectroAge joined with Keith Kjarval to found Unified Pictures, where Rauer holds the title of co-president. Rauer was instrumental in Unified's first acquisition and distribution of Don't Move in 2004 (starring Penelope Cruz) and he helped produce and oversaw the post-production on Unified's first completely developed, produced, and theatrically released feature film, The Perfect Sleep. He continued in these capacities on such Unified productions as Janie Jones (Allesandro Nivola, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Shue), A Single Shot (Sam Rockwell, Jeffrey Wright, Jason Isaacs), and Rudderless (Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, Selena Gomez). Rudderless – film star William H. Macy's directorial debut – closed out the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Paramount for distribution.
In addition to his other duties, Rauer also leads the Unified Animation Department, helping develop and produce the animated feature The Ark and The Aardvark with director John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, Madagascar) and writer Philip Lazebnik (Mulan, The Prince of Egypt).
By combining years of management and leadership experience with his passion and skill for seemingly all facets of filmmaking, Kurt Rauer is a man in his element at Unified Pictures.