Adam Phillips (animator)

Adam Phillips, also known by his online alias Chluaid (/klaɪd/), is an Australian filmmaker, animator, and former freelancer. He is best known for his animation work, consisting of flash animation compositions published on his website, Bitey Castle, and on the flash portal Newgrounds. His animation work on the latter has over 16 million views, making him one of the most-viewed artists on the site.[1] Phillips created the fantasy animation shorts series, Brackenwood, the first of which was posted on Newgrounds in March 2004.[2] He was also a featured artist at the Adobe Design Center for the month of December 2006.[3]

Adam Phillips
Born (1971-01-29) 29 January 1971
Narromine, New South Wales, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Other namesChluaid
OccupationAnimator, filmmaker, game designer, freelancer
Years active1993–present
Known forBrackenwood
StyleFantasy
Websitebitey.com

Life and career

Adam Phillips was born and raised in Narromine, New South Wales. According to his mother, he displayed a precocious artistic enthusiasm early in life:

"My mother recognized my talent for drawing when I was a toddler, and she maintains that I could hold a pencil correctly before my two legs could support me. I would sit on the floor for hours drawing spiders on my fingers and toes, and filling sheets of butcher's paper with doodles and scribbles."[4]

Walt Disney Australia

In 1989, Phillips moved to Queensland to find work. He was later injured in an industrial accident, and he dedicated himself to drawing during his convalescence. In 1993, he was hired by Disney to work as a tweener in Sydney and promoted to the position of character animator two years later. He became the effects director in 1998, a role in which he worked on several Disney sequel films. Before Phillips' promotion to the role, the studio did not have an effects department.[5][6][7]

"Transdermal Celebration" music video

In 2000, Phillips began his first animations in Flash, focusing on stories he remembered from his childhood. A devoted Ween fan, his flash work soon grew to include an official music video for the band's song "Transdermal Celebration", as well as a winning entry in the cartoon category of the Flash Forward Film Festival in early 2003. Later that year, Phillips created Bitey of Brackenwood, the second episode in his Brackenwood series and runner up in The Greatest Story Never Told (TGSNT) flash competition. During this period, he also began writing book chapters for flash guides.

Personal projects

At the end of 2004, Phillips left Disney "to pursue [his] own interests."[8][9][10][11] Since that time he has produced much content for his Brackenwood setting, including Prowlies at the River, said to be in the Top 5 Most Influential Flash Films of all time according to the now defunct ColdHardFlash.com that used to be run by Aaron Simpson, the producer of Kids' WB and JibJab.[12][13][14] The movie also won the TGSNT 2 competition's grand prize. He has continued to do outside work as a freelance animator, writer and special effects designer for clients such as Kellogg's, BioWare San Francisco and Wizards of the Coast (Dungeons and Dragons).

In November 2006, Phillips began a project in which he would produce 10–20 second animations for every day of the month. The project ended up being featured on the blog section of Wired magazine's official website.[15] His Brackenwood animations were also featured on the Wired blog in 2006.[16]

Part-time job at EA2D

Phillips was a frequent collaborator with Electronic Arts' BioWare San Francisco studio (formerly EA2D), working as a freelance animator with the studio on three Dragon Age-branded games. His collaboration included creating all of the art and animation for the browser-based Dragon Age Journeys.[17] He set the art style for the Facebook/Google+ game, Dragon Age Legends, as well as animating the opening cinematic and providing concept art for the game's main characters.[18] His art was also used for Dragon Age Legends: Remix 01, a collaboration between BioWare San Francisco and the Flash game developer PixelAnte (also known as Evan Miller).[19]

Cancelled Dashkin video game

In 2008, Phillips released the latest conventional Brackenwood instalment, The Last of the Dashkin, with the intention to either start work on a sequel or to pitch the series as a feature film. However, in 2010 Phillips partnered with programmer and fellow animator Sean McGee to start work on a Brackenwood-branded video game titled Dashkin, which would serve as a sequel to The Last of the Dashkin.[20] It would be a high-speed side-scroller, all made in Adobe Flash.[21] While still working as a freelance animator for EA2D in 2011, Phillips showed their progress on the Dashkin game to his colleagues at the studio. Not long after, EA2D was renamed Bioware San Francisco and had begun to search for established 2D IPs on Flash game sites, such as Newgrounds. EA2D asked Phillips if he would be interested for them to work with him on making Dashkin a social game on Facebook, and after discussing it with McGee, he agreed. While initially worried about the game having microtransactions, Phillips reasoned that it could help Brackenwood reach a larger audience. A small team came together, file sharing and version control were put in place, but as Phillips and McGee got to the contract stage, EA2D began to go through some big changes and their boss advised them to take the Dashkin IP back. Not long after, their boss left the company to co-found Rumble Games, and most of the EA2D Phillips had been a part of disbanded after a few months. Phillips and McGee had already begun overhauling Dashkin into a social game but they had no money left and only about 5% of the game completed.[20][22][23] After shopping the IP around to some Flash portals and getting rejected, Phillips and McGee launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to fund the project. They received US$27,333 in donations towards making the game.[24] After five years of working together, the two collaborators' schedules would not allow them to continue. Phillips had also found that the limitations of Adobe Flash were hindering the performance of the game considerably, and so the project was cancelled in 2015.[20][22]

Working on Bob's Burgers

Since May 2014, Phillips has been working as an assistant director on the American animated comedy television series Bob's Burgers. Before becoming assistant director, Phillips did occasional freelance visual effects animation on the show. To this day, working as an assistant director on Bob's Burgers is still Phillips' full-time job.[25][26]

In June 2014, Phillips created an animated GIF of the coach of the Mexican national soccer team, Miguel Herrera, transforming into a Super Saiyan, a concept from the manga and anime Dragon Ball. Using footage of Herrera gesturing wildly and excitedly on a TV broadcast following Mexico's win over Croatia, Phillips superimposed yellow hair, green eyes, glowing aura effects, and lightning on it. It became an Internet meme and the most viral reaction GIF of the World Cup at the time, being viewed over seven million times. Vice wrote about the process of creating the GIF, publishing the article in both Spanish on 26 June 2014 and in English on 27 June 2014.[27][28] Slate magazine interviewed Phillips about the animated GIF as well, on 29 June 2014.[29]

Returning to Brackenwood

When Phillips decided to switch from Adobe Flash to Toon Boom Animate (then later Toon Boom Harmony), Toon Boom did an interview with him on their website.[30] Later, in 2017, when Phillips announced that he would return to work on Brackenwood animations, with the Wildlife Documentary Series and a conventional installment in the form for a sequel to The Last of the Dashkin, Toon Boom published a large article on their official blog about Phillips and Brackenwood.[31] When Phillips finally switched from Toon Animate to the more recent iteration of the software, Toon Boom Harmony, the company behind the software, commissioned Phillips in 2014 to write a guide book to the program titled Animate to Harmony: The Independent Animator's Guide to Toon Boom, which was published on 10 October 2014.[6][32][33] Since collaborating with the company, Phillips has created numerous animation tutorial videos, demonstrations and visual effects files for Toon Boom, many of which are hosted on the company's official website. On 16 August 2011, Phillips launched the BiteyCastle Effects Academy (BCA FX), a subscription-based series of video tutorials teaching how to do 2D animated visual effects.[34][35]

Second failed attempt at a Dashkin video game

In March 2017, Phillips announced the full-time development of a new Brackenwood branded game called Dashkin, a revival of the previous Dashkin game project he had been working on with McGee. According to the Dashkin dev blog, it was to be a speed-based side-scrolling platformer built with Unreal Engine 4, and was going to be split into three parts, one of which was to be a story mode that would serve as a direct sequel to Phillips' latest conventional Brackenwood movie, The Last of the Dashkin. He had partnered with Kirk Sexton of Wrong Dojo Inc., who he had met at EA2D when Sexton was working there as a server engineer. Sexton had previous experience with programming for video games, so his role became that of a programmer on the project, while Phillips would be responsible for the majority of the art assets and the story. The project was a feature in a large article by Toon Boom, the company developing Toon Boom Harmony, which is the 2D animation software Phillips uses and an industry standard.[36][37] The project was canceled in October 2018 due to the deterioration of the working relationship of the team. Since then, Phillips has returned to work on the sequel to The Last of the Dashkin, with the working title of The Last of the Dashkin 2. He intends to use it as a pitch for a Brackenwood feature film.[38]

Wired article on Flash's rise and demise

On 19 September 2019, Wired magazine published a "Long Reads" article chronicling the history of the Flash format (.SWF) and the demise of the format in recent years. Written by Wil Bedingfield, the article includes interviews with several artists and pioneers of Flash, including the Philips and the founder of the website New grounds, Tom Fulp. Phillips talks about why he decided to switch to digital and use Flash.[39]

Phillips has had an influence on several internet animators since the early 2000s, including the popular animator and YouTuber Josiah Brooks, known as Jazza on YouTube.[5][40]

Selected works

Brackenwood
  • Auld Sage – Auld Sage sings a song from Coldplay. Although not an official episode of Brackenwood, it is the first look at Brackenwood and one of its inhabitants.
  • Bingbong of Brackenwood – The first official episode of Brackenwood, which introduces Bingbong.
  • Bitey of Brackenwood – The second official episode, which introduces Bitey.
  • Prowlies at the River – Brackenwood episode 3.
  • littleFoot – Part 1 of Brackenwood episode 4. – Created after Prowlies at the River.
  • the YuYu – Part 2 of Brackenwood episode 4. – The first episode to be sponsored by Newgrounds.
  • Waterlollies – Brackenwood episode 5 – Sponsored by Newgrounds and fan donations (also released on YouTube).
  • The Last of the Dashkin – Brackenwood episode 6 – Sponsored by Newgrounds.
  • Fatsack - Bracenwood Wildlife Documentary Series episode 1

Other animations
  • 30 shorts in 30 days
  • Pokies – Phillips' first flash
  • Night Shift
  • HitchHiker
  • Taken – for Halloween 2005
  • 3:33am – for Halloween 2006
  • Frank
  • The Wish
  • Angry Man
  • Transdermal Celebration music video, as mentioned above.

Books
  • Flash MX Most Wanted: Effects & Movies – has a chapter in which Phillips demonstrates his work on Hitchhiker: Part Two.
  • New Masters of Flash: Volume 3 – one of the chapters is written by Phillips, studying lighting effects in depth and their implementation in Flash (focusing on the Brackenwood flashes).
  • Bitey Castle Academy: Flash CS3 Animation – ebook chapters sold individually from his website, teaching Flash for graphics and frame-by-frame animation. The first two chapters are free.
  • Animate to Harmony: The Independent Animator's Guide To Toon Boom - published by Focal Press (Taylor and Francis) in 2015, it is aimed at learning Toon Boom's Animate and Harmony software, but as a reference book it has become the go-to Harmony manual in the animation schools and studios.

Awards
  • 2003—Flashforward (New York City '03): The Hitchhiker: part 2 wins the Cartoon Category.
  • 2004—Flashforward (San Francisco '04): Bingbong of Brackenwood (Finalist in the Cartoon Category).
  • 2004—TGSNT: Bitey of Brackenwood (Runnerup)
  • 2005—TGSNT: Grand Prize for Prowlies at the River
  • 2005—Flashforward (San Francisco '05): Prowlies at the River wins the Cartoon Category.
  • 2006—Flashforward (Seattle '06): littleFoot wins the Cartoon Category.
  • 2006—Annecy International Animated Film Festival (Annecy, France '06): littleFoot officially nominated in the Internet Category.
  • 2006—Flashforward (Austin '06): the Yuyu wins the Cartoon Category.
  • 2007—Flashforward (Boston '07): 30 Shorts : 30 days wins People's Choice.
  • 2008—Newgrounds: Waterlollies : NG Tank Award for Best Movie of 2007
  • 2008—12th Annual Webby Awards: The Brackenwood Series : Official Honoree, Animation
  • 2008—12th Annual Webby Awards: The Brackenwood Series : Official Honoree, Best Use of Animation/Motion Graphics
  • 2010—W3 Awards: The Last of the Dashkin : Silver Award Winner
gollark: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/
gollark: There's a Twitter API but it's awful to get access to.
gollark: You can make one which always returns `null` or something. It says that conversion to language objects is implementation defined.
gollark: What are you actually selling? Some sort of hosted bot platform?
gollark: Pillow is the new actually working one.

References
  1. "Adam Phillips at Newgrounds.com (Chluaid)".
  2. "History of Newgrounds in 2004 at Newgrounds.com".
  3. "Adam Phillips featured artist at the Adobe Systems Design Center, December 2006, for The YuYu". Archived from the original on 13 December 2006. (Wayback Machine)
  4. "Adam Phillips' old bio". Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. (Wayback Machine)
  5. "Artist Interview: Adam Phillips (Chluaid)"., 18 January 2014, Josiah Brooks (Jazza) at YouTube.com (video)
  6. "Interview with Adam Phillips: Brackenwood, Disney, working-from-home, and switching to Toon Boom - RubberOnion Animation Podcast #130"., – RubberOnion Animation
  7. Wells, Paul (1 June 2006). The Fundamentals of Animation. AVA Publishing. pp. 142, 143, 144. ISBN 2940373027.
  8. Simpson, Aaron. "Adam Phillips, Mayor of Brackenwood, Part 1"., Cold Hard Flash, 13 June 2005
  9. Simpson, Aaron. "Adam Phillips, Mayor of Brackenwood, Part 2". Archived from the original on 18 November 2016., Cold Hard Flash, 15 June 2005 (Wayback Machine)
  10. Simpson, Aaron. "Adam Phillips, Mayor of Brackenwood, Part 3". Archived from the original on 23 March 2016., Cold Hard Flash, 17 June 2005 (Wayback Machine)
  11. "Sunday Arts - Adam Phillips segment"., ABC Sunday Arts
  12. Simpson, Aaron. "The Flash Animation 10 – Most Influential"., Cold Hard Flash, 21 September 2006
  13. Amidi, Amid. "Top 10 Most Influential Online Flash Cartoons"., Cartoon Brew, 21 September 2006 6:53 am
  14. Moody, Annemarie. "ColdHardFlash.com Announces The 10 Best Flash Films"., Animation World Network, Thursday, 12 June 2008, 12:00am
  15. Sjoberg, Lore. "Thirty Cartoon Shorts in Thirty Days, Wired Magazine Blogs, November 16, 2006".
  16. "Adam Phillips does such amazing...", Wired Magazine Blogs, 4 May 2006
  17. Levy, Ethan. "Dragon Age Journeys". BioWare Blog. BioWare. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
  18. Levy, Ethan. "Legends' Community Q&A". Dragon Age Legends Blog. BioWare. Archived from the original on 2 January 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2012. (Wayback Machine)
  19. "Dragon Age Legends on Moby Games". Moby Games. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
  20. Phillips, Adam. "Dashkin dies in the end"., Bitey.com
  21. Phillips, Adam. "New Brackenwood stuff"., Bitey.com
  22. Smith, Stephanie. "Dashkin The Dream Lives On, Just Not As A Game"., Cliqist, 31 May 2016
  23. Phillips, Adam. "Dashkin game"., Bitey.com
  24. "Dashkin: a game of high speed challenges through Brackenwood"., Kickstarter.com
  25. "Adam Phillips' Linkedin page".
  26. "Adam Phillips' IMDb page".
  27. Arroyo, Luis. "¿Cómo fue que Miguel Herrera se transformó en Super Saiyajin?"., Vice (Mexican Spanish), 26 June 2014, 7:13pm
  28. Arroyo, Luis. "Meet The Animator Behind The World Cup's Most Viral Reaction GIF"., Vice (English), 27 June 2014, 9:35pm
  29. Josh, Levin. "Miguel Herrera Goes Super Saiyan: An Interview with the Creator of the Greatest GIF Ever"., Slate, 29 June 2014
  30. "Enjoying Mind Blowing Efficiencies with Harmony"., Toonboom.com
  31. Mastriaco, Desi. "Bitey is Back! The Return of Brackenwood - Adam Phillips' Animated Obsession, at the Toon Boom Blog".
  32. Troughton, Caitlin. "Animating in Harmony - Adam Phillips shows you how on Twitch TV"., Toon Boom's official blog, 25 November 2016
  33. "'Animate to Harmony: The Independent Animator's Guide to Toon Boom, a guide book by Adam Phillips".
  34. "Original BiteyCastle Effects Academy page". Archived from the original on 24 September 2011. (Wayback Machine)
  35. Amidi, Amid. "Learn 2D FX Animation for 85 Cents a Day"., Cartoon Brew 17 January, 12:29 am
  36. Mak, Philip. "Bring it on, Bitey! Check out Adam Phillips' Brackensack Video Game".
  37. Mak, Philip. "Top Animation News: Cannes 2018, Mill Film, Final Frontier and More!"., Toon Boom Blog, 18 May 2018
  38. "Game Over"., at Bitey.com
  39. Bedingfield, Wil. "The rise and fall of Flash, the annoying plugin that shaped the modern web"., Wired UK article, 19 September 2019
  40. Rought, Karen. "Artist's Spotlight: Jazza wants you to join the arty party"., Hypable 17 December 2014
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