Peter Rasmussen
Posted by Johnnie
Peter Rasmussen was one of the cornerstones of the Machinima community. He died earlier today.
Hugh and I have already put up a short tribute to Peter on the Machinima For Dummies blog, but I want to take a few lines to add my personal thoughts as well. I Hate Sheep is my personal blog, covering whatever subjects I happen to be interested in at the time and containing no opinions but my own. This particular post is as personal as it gets.
First of all, a little about the man himself for those who didn’t know him. Peter was a very independent guy, a loner in many ways. I got the impression that he couldn’t help but furrow his own unique path through life – he was one of those people who simply couldn’t have done it any other way. I wouldn’t want to leave you with the impression that Peter was unsociable or uncommunicative, though. Far from it: he was immensely likeable and always eager to help others, and to share his considerable experience and expertise. Like many Machinima heroes, he did all of this willingly and with no expectation of any sort of payment or reward.
He was also a superb – simply superb – director. He possessed an inate feel for camerawork and way of simplifying characterisation down to the pure minimum. You can see his skill in pieces such as Killer Robot or Stolen Life. Stolen Life, in particular, is a flagship piece, and easily amongst the best machinima ever created. It was a deserving winner of the Best Picture award at the 2007 European Machinima Festival. To my eternal chagrin, I still haven’t got around to buying a copy of the DVD.
I didn’t know Peter very well, if I’m being honest. I have no doubt, though, that he’d be staggered by the amount of people who held him in the highest possible regard. I have an email thread in my in-box between Peter and myself, and a note on my to-do list reading “Contact Pete R to finish conversation”. I’ll never be able to tick that box now, and I have no doubt I’ve missed out on a fascinating and worth-while conversation.
He will be deeply missed.
So sad, thanks for writing Johnnie, glad to hear your comments.
Your comments are bittersweet, Johnnie. I, too, had an email thread with Peter that I never followed up on. And I had several short conversations with him via Skype. He was a remarkable man who was only just starting to find his stride as a machinima filmmaker. So many works that we will never see now. I’m just shocked.
Thanks for your comments. I don’t know what else to say.