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Exhibition: Machinima Revelations
| Where: | When: | 05-Jul-08 02:00 PM until 20-Jul-08 06:00 PM |
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The 11th Revelation International Film Festival has announced a special tribute to late Australian *'machinima' pioneer Peter Rasmussen as part of this years' festival.
Peter Rasmussen may not be a name that has a big profile for the general public in Australia, but for the ever-growing community of ‘machinima' producers and their audience, Peter was an innovator and a role model.
‘Machinima' is a cross between film-making and a video game. Machini-makers use the software of first-person shooter and role-playing video games to create their own stories and characters. These are then edited on a computer and transformed into a unique form of moviemaking.
Peter Rasmussen was one of the first people in Australia to realise the incredible potential of this new medium. In a few short years he produced two feature length ‘machinima' films and a number of shorter works, all of which won international acclaim and awards. His full-length science fiction film Stolen Life premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 2007 and in the same year won Best Direction, Best Story and Best Visual Design at the Machinima Festival of Europe.
But there is more to Peter's story than that of a successful filmmaker. When Peter graduated from the Australian Film and Television School in the 1980s, he was set for a promising career as a cinematographer. However, soon after graduating he was diagnosed with macular degeneration, an incurable disease of the optic nerves that normally only affects elderly people. His chosen career disappeared seemingly overnight.
Perhaps under the stoic influence of his Nordic ancestors, Peter never gave in to despair, but instead embarked on a successful career as a screenwriter, co-writing such Australian classics as In the Winter Dark and the cult film, Mad Bomber in Love.
As his eyesight continued to deteriorate Peter explored new methods of film-making that did not require expensive equipment, big budgets or pesky actors. He discovered a way of making films entirely within the virtual world of a computer. He also discovered an online community of like-minded machinimakers. He never looked back.
One of Peter's long-time friends, Associate Professor Leon Marvell of Deakin University, has put together a machinima film festival as part of the 11th Revelation Perth International Film Festival in Perth. In honour of Peter Rasmussen, Machinima Revelations will showcase the very best of contemporary experimental machinima from machinimakers from around the world.
Marvell has been overwhelmed by the international response to the exhibition, with most of the contributors expressing their indebtedness to Peter's example and of his role in challenging them to produce radical new works.
"Peter was the very reason I began making machinima", says Friedrich Kirschner, creator of the award-winning The Journey, a short film also included in the exhibition.
Machinima Revelations will include two of Peter Rasmussen's award-wining machinima, Rendevous and Stolen Life as well as the very best of experimental machinima from Europe, the USA and Australia.
Exhibition opens: 5pm, Saturday July 5 until - July 20, 2008
Hours: 2pm - 6pm Wed - Sun
Venue: Spectrum Project Space, 221 Beaufort Street, Northbridge
*‘Machinima' (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking by combining the techniques of filmmaking, animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game technologies.
