I had to write a paper about a famous animator for my Freshmen Animation class at school so I chose one of my favorite animators. Adam Phillips. It's not a great paper, and I did it between the hours of 12:00am and 4:00am. It's very factual and gives the background of his life and how he got started doing what he does so good. It might be worth the read, or not. Either way, I'm sure someone out there will find it interesting.

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Adam Phillips was born in 1971 and was raised in Narromine, New South Wales. From an early age he was an alarmingly good artist and he became comfortable at expressing himself through visual art before he could do much of anything else. He says, "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." Phillips grew up drawing and exploring his artistic abilities.

In 1989, Phillips moved to Queensland to look for work. He found work operating machinery in a steel factory. In an accident his arm was sucked into the machine and both bones in his forearm were shattered. Adam recalls feeling very lucky that his arm wasn't torn off and he somehow reached the emergency shut-off button before that result happened. During his six-month recovery time, Phillips refined his drawings style and really focused on art. He spent his days sleeping and his nights drawing and wandering the beaches of which he lived on. With all of the newfound time he had, he learned all he could about story telling and anatomy and how to convey a story through art. He tried going back to work at the factory but realized it was no longer the place for him and soon quit. It was right at this time that he discovered Disney was hiring. It wasn't until right then the Adam Phillips actually considered animation as a career. He had always loved to draw and was quite good at it, but it was now he thought to himself that he could really go somewhere with it. He was really into comic books and inside he knew he wanted to be the next Simon Bisley who was an extremely successful British comic book artist.

Adam Phillips used much of what he drew and created during his time off from work to form the best portfolio he could to show Disney. In 1993, he was hired as a full time Tweener in Sydney, Australia. Adam Phillip's talent quickly and easily shown through and he rose in positions very quickly. In 1995 he was promoted to character animator and he was promoted once more in 1998 to effects animator. Many attribute Adam's talent as an animator to his long years spent effects animating. He has discovered and invented countless ways to animate some of the most difficult, and time consuming effects in quick and effective manners.

During his time at Disney, Phillips worked on several movies. His Sydney-based studio was the only branch of Disney pumping out "direct to video" sequels of prior movies so not only did they get a lot of jobs but they studio had plenty of money, too. Adam Phillips worked as an in-between artist on the film A Goofy Movie (1995). Phillips also worked as a special effects animator on Aladdin and the Kind of Thieves (1995), The Little Mermaid II: The Return to the Sea (2000), Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure (2001), Return to Never Land (2002), The Lion King 1 ½ (2004), and Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck (2007).

Phillips did not think that Disney had his best interests in mind. He had been animating other people's stories, and other people's dreams for ten plus years and he thought it was time for him to pursue his real interests and aspirations. In 2004, Phillips left Disney to work full time as a freelancer and explore and create an animated world of his own.

When Adam Phillips is not working for himself he does freelance work. He's written articles and chapters in many books about animation and about the program Flash. He works as a freelance animator, a writer and a special effects designer.

He's gained international fame in the online community for his works revolving around the story of Brackenwood. Phillips had been developing the story behind Brackenwood for a long time before leaving Disney and it was now that he could pour all of his energy into it. Since it's conception, Phillips has released seven movies involving characters and stories that all take place within the magical land of Brackenwood. Brackwood is a world covered in lush vast forests and massive volumes of water. Phillips' movies revolve around the inhabitants and their interactions with each other. They main character of the series is Bitey, who looks like a half man, half goat. Bitey is a mischievous character who finds pleasure in others harm. The only reason he can get away with it (some of the time) is because he also just so happens to be the fastest creature on the planet. The world Phillips created has inspired many amateur animators and the ability to view all of the Brackenwood creations for free has helped Phillips gain the popularity of virtually the entire Internet. Another reason Phillips appeals to so many people is because of his openness to talk to people about his stories and about animation. Anyone can go to his online forums and talk with him, and there are many like-minded people who will converse about his techniques and styles. He has written many online tutorials explaining the inner workings of Flash and he writes about his methods behind making some of the complex effects that he does.

Adam Phillips has one a handful of prestigious awards over the years for his work in the animation industry, and on his own. While at Disney, he was nominated for the DVDX Award for the Best Visual Effects in a DVD Premiere Movie. Since then Phillips has one nearly every online animation award there has been. Phillips has won the Flashforward Award six times over the course of four years. Flashforward is the largest film festival for works created entirely in Flash and it has the reputation of being the largest gathering of Flash developers and designers to date (Ambur). In 2003, he won the Flashforward Award for The Hitchhiker: Part 2 in the Cartoon Category. In 2004, Bingbong of Brackenwood was a finalist in the Cartoon Category. He won the award in 2005 for Prowlies by the River and again in 2006 for littleFoot, both in the Cartoon Category. At another conference of Flashforward of 2006, the Yuyu won. Most recently, in 2007, Phillips won the peoples choice award with his 30 Shorts: 30 Days. In 2004, Phillips got runner-up in The Greatest Story Never Told (TGSNT) competition for his masterpiece Bitey of Brackenwood that was his first major movie to gain worldwide recognition. TGSNT is "a digital storytelling competition that seeks to recognize and reward emerging and established 2D/3D animators, comic book artists, filmmakers, independent storytellers and students worldwide who produce original stories" (TGSNT). The very next year Adam Phillips took the Grand Prize for Prowlies at the River in the same competition.

The future holds a lot of possibilities for Adam Phillips and he's expressed interested at turning Brackenwood into much more than a short online series. Phillips goals are to eventually make Brackenwood a feature length movie, publish books revolving around the stories he's thought up and possibly a television series. As much as Phillips would like to keep Brackenwood free to the public, he's been living off of award money and supportive donations for the past couple years and he's going to need to start producing larger works under bigger names. Adam Phillips will continue to work in Flash and amaze people with his ability to use the program like no one else does. He takes 2D Flash animation to an entirely new and seemingly unreachable level with his careful attention to detail and drawing. The most captivating part of his life is his ability to be so humble about his work when he is so very clearly one of the most influential and gifted Flash developers of the time. His background in Disney has helped grow and produce what has come to be some of the most beautifully animated Flash movies to date and he is an inspiration to all amateur animators, alike.

Sources:

http://www.brackenwood.net/blog/
http://news.deviantart.com/article/289 08/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0680185/
http://coldhardflash.com/2005/06/adam-
phillips-part-1.html
http://www.tgsnt.com/
http://www.biteycastle.com/