How to Succeed in the Games Industry – Christine Phelan of Valve

This film is taken from our 2012 animation festival. https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk
Event sponsored by University of Bradford.

Christine Phelan of US studios Valve, developers of award winning franchises such as the Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, Portal and number one online action game Counter-Strike.

An animator with experience in both the television and videogames industries, Christine graduated with a degree in animation from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia in 2006.

Christine started as a production intern on the Nickelodeon cartoon series Catscratch before joining LucasArts Entertainment to produce animation and cinematics for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

In 2008 Christine was recruited by Double Fine productions to create character animations for titles such as Brütal Legend, Costume Quest and Iron Brigade as well as several spots of freelance work for television commercials and iPad applications.
Christine joined revered studio Valve Corporation in early 2011 and began developing character animation and cinematics for online battler Dota 2.

Following in the tradition of Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Portal, Dota 2 is the result of Valve hiring the community developers who built the original mod and creating a full product with the help of a professional team of developers and artists.

Christine talked about her experience working as an animator across different mediums and shed some light on what it's like to work at Valve, the creative powerhouse behind some of the most influential titles in the history of videogames.