Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Satyrlicious - Bitey Castle



Hey there folks. Welcome to another Randomitronica post. This week I'd like to write about a certain animator and his work.

The animator's name is Adam Phillips, he currently lives in Sydney, Australia.
He's animated a great many things, but the main focus of this blog will be on the subject of his Brackenwood series of short animations.
There are currently 6 animated Brackenwood shorts (plus a music video thingy) available at Phillips' website www.biteycastle.com . They feature the doings of various denizens of Brackenwood, a planet mostly covered in forest, full of various creative forms of wildlife sprung from Phillips' imagination with a dash or two of mythical creatures and Cryptozoology thrown in for good measure.

The main character (I hesitate to refer to him as a protagonist, he's much more of an antagonist) is Bitey, a satyr/faun, who also happens to be the fastest creature on the planet.
Bitey is not a nice guy. Apart from the basics of day to day survival in this world, Bitey's main focus tends to be creating mischief towards and at times downright malicious havoc upon his fellow forest dwellers. Well, at least the ones that are smaller and weaker than he is.

Lookit him there, looking all sinister n stuff.



Personally, I think he's great. He looks after himself, takes the piss out of everyone, and can move like a motherfucker.
Here, have a look for yourselves.

What a feast for the senses huh?
OK here's part 2 of that story.
See? Told you he was fast.

Now bear in mind that this stuff was animated by only one person, Phillips himself, in Flash. There is a plan for a Brackenwood feature film that has taken its first few tentative steps towards being a happening thing. Phillips has just scratched the surface of the potential of his characters and world in the Brackenwood shorts, I for one reckon a feature length Brackenwood animated film would be a mighty cool thing indeed. So hopefully it does all come together and Mr. Phillips gets the support and financial backing to turn his goal of expanding this concept into a film with A grade production values and with the freedom and time to do it the way he envisages it.

It would certainly be vastly, vaaaastly more entertaining than trash like this.
Eh? Eh? Ammirite? Of bloody course I am.

Incidentally, a few years back Phillips did this poignant little music video for Ween. This video clip was my first exposure to Phillips' work, and is how I discovered Bitey Castle in the first place.

Hopefully you'll enjoy having a look through the animations on the BiteyCastle site as much as I do. Be sure to click the castle next to the header in the animations section for a bunch of other animated goodies. As for moi, I'm off to bake/burn some cookies.
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Before I go though, here's a bonus clip of Joe Pesci havin' a rap. He's like, totally serious yo.
Fffpmmwaahahaha! Good grief O_O



Yes, that is indeed Naomi Campbell as the "brunette".
Thanks to Akira The Don for bringing to my attention this sterling example of a complete lack of taste and good sense.

xo Chloé

2 comments:

  1. Pretty interesting short films. I gave'em thumbs up both on YouTube and Newgrounds and will recommend them to a friend of mine who's into furry animation. XD

    P. S. 1: come on, M&A's that bad? I didn't watch it, but I want to.

    P. S. 2: careful with the number of videos per post, OMG! =O I'll postpone Pesci's one 'cause I got Brackenwood on my mind right now.

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  2. To be fair, I only saw a portion of Monsters vs Aliens (it was that bad I couldn't watch any more).
    The biggest problem I have with it is that I find the plot to be uninspired & run of the mill, and the characters to be bland rehashes of similar stuff Dreamworks have pushed on us many times in the past. And the "comedy" element is seriously lacking.
    Not even Hugh Laurie could save this film.

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