Patrick Bohnet (Quu) Has Passed Away

[WalterScott]

I haven't posted here in a long time, since I started a PhD program five years ago and had to put AMV making on hold. What a terrible loss. My heart goes out to Patrick's family and the friends who knew him best. Even though I only knew him a little it was a privilege. Patrick was one of the most passionate and dedicated people I've ever known. One of the main reasons I stayed in the hobby was due in part to his support and encouragement.

When I submitted one of my first AMVs to the AWA Pro contest back in, God when was that, 2002? I was just starting out, didn't know anyone, had no confidence, etc. etc. My submission that year (the future boy conan video) caused him all kinds of grief I remember, there was some problem and I think I had to rush him a backup copy right before the screening, and then it had interlace issues. He was pretty damn gracious about it under the circumstances. I think it was basically thanks to him, and to Bill Milberry, that I didn't just give up entirely and kept trying, and got to be part of this wonderful community of creators for a few years.

I always loved spending time with him when I was down in Atlanta, especially after the con was over and he could relax a bit. I remember all the exhilarating tech conversations we would have, especially in the beginning as we started out in the VHS era and he could see what was going to be possible in the digital era and kept moving things forward.

I still can't believe he's gone.

"Who lived here
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
And we are so amazed we're crippled and we're dazed
A gardener like that one no one can replace"

walter scott / graven image

[macchinainterna]

Damn...

My condolences to his family.

[madmallard]

When I submitted one of my first AMVs to the AWA Pro contest back in, God when was that, 2002? I was just starting out, didn't know anyone, had no confidence, etc. etc. My submission that year (the future boy conan video) caused him all kinds of grief I remember, there was some problem and I think I had to rush him a backup copy right before the screening, and then it had interlace issues. He was pretty damn gracious about it under the circumstances. I think it was basically thanks to him, and to Bill Milberry, that I didn't just give up entirely and kept trying, and got to be part of this wonderful community of creators for a few years.

As an aside, ALL of us were profoundly affected by your AMV work when we saw it the first time. We hadn't seen an AMV up until that time attempt the tone you set with it and that pairing became a benchmark in our minds at the time for dramatic, and minimalism for reaching into the viewers feelings. we sincerely thank you for submitting.


And while I KNOW he worked so hard to get a good rendition of it to screen because he really loved your video, I also know he worked equally hard on any video wether he was personally enamored with it or not.

"Who lived here
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
And we are so amazed we're crippled and we're dazed
A gardener like that one no one can replace"

and he loved EJ too. I think this is a highly appropriate lyric, except that instead of there being no gardener left, he has left many gardeners & we are all in part crops he has sown.

[outlawed]

I have no idea who Quu is, but he will be missed. Best of luck for his Wife and Daughter.

In this thread you're going to see a lot of different posters pop up that you probably haven't seen or heard of before and who have not been active here for years. That alone speaks volumes of how Patrick brought a lot of us together whether at cons or through a helping hand over the years.

Here's some information, so you have a bit more of an idea just on the AMV front how his life affected us.

Eloquent post that gives perspective on the important influence Patrick had on the AMV community and especially AMVs at cons. I'm going to write something from my own experiences.

My involvement with the AMV online scene and cons began in 1999. I think I first met Patrick in person at ACen 2002. I say think because a lot of the ACens blur together in my memory. Patrick was a mainstay online for tech help so I had written or IMd him several times over the years. When I met him in person my first impression was of how charismatic and comfortable he was with us strangers. He really put me at ease and I had several very memorable discussions with him. I learned a hell of a lot from talking shop with him. In 2003 he tapped me to become ACen's defending champ for the first Iron Chef event at the con. I was very proud of that he asked me. Patrick tapped Dwchang for my competition who was at this time becoming recognized as an excellent editor. Patrick had a great eye for spotting talent like DWchang's and I think he first picked up on this during the screening of videos in ACen 2002. So 2003 was at a time when a lot of editors began doing a lot more to distribute their works online and there were quite a few editors who hit multiple cons. I didn't usually post the database entry on my own vids on this site until years after they premiered and I never bothered to engage in much distribution of my own stuff so I viewed myself as somewhat of a black sheep. At any rate Patrick knew I had won several times and even though the wins were only at ACen he was confident that I would show up and get the job done. When the fateful competition came around I did lose but I think I covered my end. What struck me as amusing was how all my friends thought I was pretty calm even though several people noticed I barely had anything on the timeline with like 30 minutes to go because I set everything up in storyboard first and then put it into the timeline. Later Patrick posted some notes on LJ I think and he mentioned how calm I was. That is right up until we got near the end and then he commented something like "OK good now he finally looks nervous!" That brought a smile to my face when I read his comments on the event. He saw right through me there.

What people consider the standards to try and offer in an AMV contest and programming have a lot of stuff that Patrick helped pioneer for the community. Online entry form submission, upload submission, Iron Chef the precursor to Iron Editor, digital conversion and archive of contest entries. Patrick was ahead of the curve and helped move things forward for AMVs at cons. When everyone was still doing tape submission Patrick had a setup to capture analog to digital and store that for playback. This offered a huge increase in quality at the con because you did not suffer the generation loss when copying stuff between two VCRs. A lot of this work and equipment that Patrick pumped into the AMV community came from his own wallet and time. He frequently loaned equipment to other cons and during a probably 3 year run he was running tech for AMV contests at a large number of cons. That is how I came to meet him at ACen. This was all before I got involved with staffing the AMV contest and programming at ACen. Patrick's tech work was a huge influence on me personally to try and raise the bar of display quality at ACen and to have better prescreening.

Obviously it's been noted about a lot of the programming stuff he did for the AMV community but I also want to mention if any of you were playing WoW and raiding in the early days of that mmo there was a popular mod called decursive that broke on the scene and made things a lot easier for players who had to cleanse raid members. It was made by Patrick and was available to anyone to download. It was something he made to help himself and his guild and I doubt he ever thought it would become as popular as it did but it quickly became a go to mod for raiders and pvp players in that era. In competitive games like that some people would keep things like that private but that wasn't Patrick. It was the same with AMV software. Stuff he worked on for AWA was openly made available and shared with the community. A lot of the contests that jumped in improvement during the early 2000s have Patrick to thank. In fact I often wonder if the contests would be as open today if it wasn't for some of that early groundwork Patrick made.

I don't think I can write anymore right now. I send my thoughts and prayers for his family and friends.

[SailorDeath]

I have many stories about Patrick, but the one that's standing out the most right now is how we first met in person. I've known quu since 2000, but we didn't meet in person until 2002. It was a year before I started working on staff at Anime Central. I was just a regular contestant then. The con had at con submissions still and I had wanted to re-submit a better quality version of an AMV I had submitted. First Quu had a look of horror on his face and nervously asked me what codec I had used. At the time, he was converting everything to DV for the playback system and knowing this that was the format I encoded the video into. When I told him this, he then stood up and gave me a giant rib crushing bear hug and told me that he loved me for making his work easier. I was kind of shocked and then he informed me that he had already been up for 24 hours. I'll never forget that moment for as long as I live. I will miss you Patrick and I can't help but feel the world was robbed of a very special and selfless person.

[dokidoki]

From the archive to cons and beyond, I remember Quu as one of the most hardworking people in AMVs. One of the first things I remember was him telling me about how he met Debra, which involved one of the rib-crushing bear hugs that SailorDeath mentioned. I remember using his MPEG2 profiles to compress, and him having to send my masters video to SigmaDesigns since it didn't work with the NetStream.

I haven't been to AWA in a few years partly due to finances and such. I'm sorry I didn't get to see him again.

[Lone Wolf]

I am saddened by this news greatly. I've met him several times over the past AWA's and he was just a huge guy with the kindest personality. My thoughts go out to his wife and daughter as well as everyone close to him. RIP Patrick. I'll miss ya.

At least we know that Heaven won't be having any tech issues anymore...

[Brakus]

I've been attending AWA since 2003, and been part of VAT staff since 2008. I've met countless people over the years that I've attended AWA, but none so larger than life as Patrick. Patrick was a genuinely fantastic person, always very helpful and knowledgeable, and gave so many AMV editors like myself so much inspiration and courage. He was a tremendous asset to AWA and its Video Art Track. Outside of con-related stuff, Patrick had a fondness for his cooking, his wife and lovely daughter, and his leet tech skills. He always was able to explain various technological concepts in ways that even I can understand. And he absolutely was passionate about food - we got to talking at length at times about Good Eats, Alton Brown, and his many experiments in cooking.

I am fortunate to have met Patrick one more time this past April at the AWA staff meeting, but I am extremely disappointed that the world will no longer have his presence. Thank you so much for everything, Patrick. Godspeed.

[Warlike Swans]

My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

[Qyot27]

Whoa. My only interactions with him were on a couple of the tech threads here and on Doom10, but I recognized who he was from the guides section and from convention-related or general community talk from around the time I joined and many years since. This is a huge loss, to be sure.