Inside the FoxHole: Featured Author wildwise

Wildwise is known throughout the FlashDen community for his slick, contemporary designs. He also has the honor of creating an infamous 3D engine available on FlashDen that has been used by numerous famous clients/Web sites including G-Unit. Doesn’t get much bigger than that, does it?! As one of FlashDen’s Top 50 authors, let’s get to learn more about the mind and person behind wildwise studio!

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from, what do you do for a living?

Hi, my name is Arnaud, also known as “wildwise studio”. I’m 30 and I live in Paris, France.
I’ve been a freelance Art Director for 2-and-a-half years, mainly for large advertising and Web groups from around the world, like DDB, Euro RSCG, and Draft FCB. Before that, I was an Art Director for a couple of other companies for 4 years. I tend to specialize in entertainment and full Flash websites.

2. How long have you been using Flash and what made you start selling items on FlashDen?

Flash is actually what brought me to the Internet. I studied design in Paris for 3 years after my A-levels, but it was only print-based design, no interactive multimedia.

After 3 years I had to find a job and I was really attracted by interactive and animated things I saw on the Internet. So I decided to take few weeks to learn how to use this “Macromedia Flash thing”. I worked on it 12 hours a day for about 2 months and eventually succeeded in creating something decent. I then looked for a Flash Web designer job and found one pretty quickly.

My approach to participating and selling on FlashDen has completely been motivated by the way I learned Flash. I taught myself (particularly ActionScript) by looking at other people’s Flash files. It wasn’t always easy however since authors didn’t always comment all of the code within their files. I then thought it would be cool for someone wanting to learn Flash to be able to find clean and well commented files for few bucks. That’s why I submitted my first files.

3. Do you create files from scratch for FlashDen, or do you re-use work that you’ve created for a client?

Since I’m very busy as a freelancer, I don’t really have time to create big files from scratch for FlashDen, but all my small files, like mouse tracers or preloaders, are usually made from scratch for FlashDen and result from tests or experimentations.

Larger files are taken from clients’ work that I modify a bit (design and code) to make them fit to the FlashDen specifications and client needs.

4. Where do you get your inspiration from for your FlashDen work?

Mmmmh… difficult to say. Usually, my inspiration comes from everything I see around me. TV show designs, sci-fi movies, MP3 player ergonomics, subway ads, clothing, books, video games. I’m like a sponge and absorb everything around me that I’m interested in. I forget about 30% of my “good” ideas, since I don’t always write them down, then I see the same ideas in another Web site and get mad at myself for not remembering even though I had the idea before the other guys did!

5. What is your work flow like when starting a new file? Could you walk us through the steps you take when getting ready to create a new file?

First of all, I imagine it, draw it roughly on a paper with circles and squares. Then I design it in Photoshop when I know exactly what I need in the file. Once it’s done and I see the exact image I want it to be, I export all the images I need for Flash.

The Flash steps are usually always the same. I first create my main file, which will call other files. Then I create all the separate files that load into the main vehicle. Finally, I add the code to make everything work well.

The design step is as important to me as the Flash step. If your file is not neat, sharply designed or clean, it won’t sell as well. Same principle applies for the Flash structure, comments and coding.

6. What do you do to market and brand your files?

Actually, I don’t really brand and market my files! I made some kind of effort a few months ago to put my logo on each thumbnail of my files, but it could be better since now all you see is my logo but not the file anymore!

If I read and trust what people say, I would say that my files are quite clean, well designed and easy to understand. That’s what really matters to me, since I don’t really sell files to earn money or recognition (luckily I already have this in my day-to-day job) but instead, I get to help people save time by allowing them to learn from or use my files.

7. What advice can you give to authors that might help them increase their overall sales?

Make a slick design, clean code, an understandable help file, and offer good support (note: support does not mean customizing for free! ).

Also, make nice thumbnails (I don’t necessarily practice what a I preach!), add nice screenshots at the top of your item page (I don’t do that either!) and participate in the FlashDen forums (I don’t anymore, kind of sad about that since people over there are really cool and helpful, but I’m sadly too busy right now.)

8. Besides yourself, who is your favorite FlashDen author and why do you like them?

Well, Adrien is my favorite audio author. He’s got everything you could need on his page. Some of his sounds are featured in several of my files (mainly portfolio V2). My favorite video author is Mark, formerly known as xdozex. These two guys became forum moderators because they are really wise

For Flash files, my favorite authors are triworks (great files, very rich and useful for advanced flash users), DigitalScience (very good branding and marketing, which is a very important thing for successful authors), Bobocel (provides things that people need, not more, not less), Michael Hejja (released a very original XML editor along with a totally new, high level coding standard.) I hate all the other authors, they suck! Just kidding, I hate just a few of them.

9. Which file do you think is your best file so far?

I think my best file is my “Portfolio v2“. You can customize it a lot and make a bunch of different styles from it, if you know how to use Flash. I saw 3 people using it in a very different yet efficient way, you wouldn’t even guess they came from the same file. The only common thing is the structure (menu on the left, options on the right), but everything else was different. They created their own Flash parts to put in it, using the same file structure as mine. They added backgrounds, videos… I was quite surprised how far these people customized my file.

As far as sales are concerned, it seems my subway gallery is quite popular too. This is from a Web site I created for a client few years ago. I decided to put it on FD just to demonstrate what can be done with the parallax engine I provided a few weeks earlier. I had no idea it would sell this well, since it’s graphically “specialized” for hip-hop or urban needs. But it still sells well, thanks to all the FD customers.

10. What one thing would you like to change about FlashDen if you could?

I talked a bit with FD staff a while ago about copyright issues, which happened several times on the same file. Some people said I was a victim of my own success since it happened after big Web sites / companies used my file, like G-Unit and Draft Chile. Some visitors thought I took this file from their Web sites whereas it was the other way around! Staff told me they would work on a way to check files which already proved they were original. I also think that features and search were easier to find and use in an earlier version of FlashDen.net. These are the only things I think could be improved upon. Sure, there are certain things that could be done “better” or perhaps in another way, but FD is ok for me as it is.

11. When you aren’t developing cool Flash files, what do you do for fun?

Thanks for saying my files are cool!

For fun, my PS3 is my liiiiiiiiiiiiife (well, until PS4 arrives at least! ). I like video games, photography, walking in Paris, going to NY (I usually go once a year for at least 2 weeks), having fun with friends, drinking orange juice, going to the movies, drawing, buying a lot of clothes, collecting sneakers, eating good things, and trying not to eat too much of those good things!

12. Would you like to give a sneak peek of the latest file you are currently working on to our readers?

I am purposely going to be vague on this for two reasons.

1. I am collaborating on my new file with another developer, “0h”, who created this FlashDen file, so it can take a long time when both of us are working back-and-forth on the same project.
2. We are trying to create something new and unique, so we don’t want to reveal too much about it. But I can tell you a few things. It will be a gallery-like file, with a simple and neat high-tech design. It will be XML driven, fullscreen, images will be sortable, and I hope it will be as cool to use as it will be to create.

   I can’t say any more about this project

Thanks for interviewing me and long live FD members!

View wildwise’s portfolio.

Read more interviews with FlashDen authors.