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Issue #109 | July 26th, 2026

Hey Reader 👋

So. I launched my first product ever this week.

​🍋 Citron. My graph editor for After Effects. It's out there in the world now, and people are actually using it. 🔥

Here's the thing nobody tells you: building the extension was the easy part.

Seriously. The code, the UI, the logic, the thing I was actually scared of… that went fine. What crushed me was everything around it. Hosting the product. Setting up checkout. Wiring it all together. Bug report forms. Feature request forms. Customer support. Replying to every single person. Marketing.

An insane amount of work I genuinely did not see coming.

And then Reddit happened

I'd heard about the trolls. Never really experienced them myself. Not like this.

A bunch of people just shitting on my face about whatever they could find. The price. And the big one: that the tool was "vibe-coded," so obviously it's worthless, obviously I'll get bored, stop fixing bugs, drop support, and everyone who paid gets burned.

I started answering them. Then I stopped.

Because my time is really, really precious right now. And I was spending it on people who already had an opinion about me without knowing me… and without ever having opened the actual tool.

I get why the reflex exists. Some people do treat vibe coding as a quick money scheme. Build it, ship it, forget it, collect. That's real, and it's happened enough that the suspicion is fair.

It's just not how I work. Not even close to what I'm building here.

But if you want to put me in that box, honestly? Fine. I don't care.

What I do care about

My users.

The first feedback started coming in and it genuinely warmed my heart. A couple of people were straight up amazed by it, and that's the whole thing right there. That's the part that counts.

Then I got a message from a very good friend of mine. If you're a motion designer you probably know his work. He built one of the biggest After Effects plugins in the world - Newton, from Motion Boutique.

I sent him Citron. His feedback was so cool. And now we're talking about how you build a real long-term portfolio of plugins, scripts, and extensions for After Effects… and further down the line, maybe Maya and other animation tools.

That conversation is what I want more of.

So no, I'm not going anywhere

Every bug gets fixed. And I already have features I can't wait to build.

Clicking a keyframe and typing exact numeric values, so you can retype and tweak instead of dragging blind.

And the big one - a completely new approach to the speed graph.

Because let's be honest, the After Effects speed graph is nonsense. I've basically never used it. It's not intuitive, it doesn't map to how I think about motion, and I'm convinced there's a better way to approach the whole thing. That one's coming.

If any of this sounds useful, hit the button below. Check it out, or just hop on the update list so you're the first to know when new features drop ( bottom of this page)

🍋 Get Citron!

One more thing, and it's not a fun one

Pixar layoffs.

I don't have insider info. I'm one guy reading the news like everyone else. But from what I saw, people are getting let go - including people who've been there 10 plus years - while the studio is sitting on a film pulling a billion dollars.

Let that sit for a second.

It's another clue on a very long list. An animation career today is not what it was 20 years ago. The dream of getting into one of those studios and staying for life… that version doesn't really exist anymore.

You can still fight for it. Go for it. Genuinely.

But when the studios you're aiming at are laying off veterans instead of hiring, maybe don't make it your only plan.

Get a plan B. It can take a lot of shapes. Freelancing is the obvious one, and it's the one I know best - it's literally why I built everything I've built.

And to everyone at Pixar getting laid off right now: I'm sorry. Layoffs are never fun. Sending you all my thoughts. ❤️

Alright. Let's get into this week's issue. 🔥

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The Spotlight

Some films are so obviously good that you assume everyone already knows them. And then you check your own archive and realize you never actually wrote about it.

That's this one.

Alan and Beverly go on a romantic getaway. Hiking, sunshine, the whole thing. Somewhere in the middle of all that blissful loved-up nonsense, they cause an accident. Something dies. And that crime does not go unpunished.

That's it. That's the whole premise.

It's funny. It's gory. And it's one of the best examples I know of a simple idea pushed absurdly far.

​

It's a graduation film from École des Nouvelles Images in Avignon - which, if you've been reading this newsletter for a while, you know is the school closest to my heart. I've worked there. I know the team. They're incredible.

This one was made around my last year there, but I was coming in and out, not full time at all. I did not supervise it. Maybe I dropped a couple of notes here and there in passing.

The merit is entirely theirs. Six directors, all students. Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux.

Why it works

The animation is genuinely funny. Real comic timing, real weight, real commitment to the bit. But the animation is not what makes this film different. It's the writing, the style, and the comedy working together.

Here's the thing most people don't notice on first watch: there is not a single spoken word in the entire film. Seven minutes, zero dialogue. Everything - the romance, the tonal whiplash, the escalation into full horror - is carried by staging, performance, music and sound design.

That's the lesson right there. If your idea only works with dialogue explaining it, the idea isn't clear enough yet.

And the tonal shift is the real craft flex. It opens as a romantic comedy. It ends somewhere completely different. The pivot lands smoothly while still catching you off guard, and it's the music and the sound effects doing most of that heavy lifting.

Most student films that try a tone shift like this fall on their face. This one glides.

The modeling, the lighting, the rendering. All of it is just freaking good. Which is the part that gets me. This film is almost eight years old now.

Eight years. Made by students. And it still holds up against work coming out of professional studios today.

If you can remember what CG looked like eight years ago - what most student CG looked like eight years ago - that should tell you something.

I love this kind of film. Start from one dumb simple idea, then push it further than anyone reasonable would. That's almost always where the funny lives. And the crazy. And the memorable.

It made the Oscar shortlist in 2021, and part of that team went on to form the collective now known as MegaComputeur.​

Go watch it. It's seven minutes of gory fun. 😊

🎬 Credits
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Directors: Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux
​Production: École des Nouvelles Images (ENSI)​
​Screenplay: Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux
​Animation: Paul Autric, Léa Georges
​Camera: Quentin Camus, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux
​Editing: Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux
​Original Music: Nicolas Cornil
​Sound: Lucie Krencker

Share this short film to someone! 😊

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The Job Fair

• ​Senior Animator - Lightcatcher Media · 100% Remote (preference for British Columbia, Canada)
  ​Maya-based senior role driving cartoony character performance on the upcoming stylized series Little Margo Stories. They want 3+ years of professional 3D animation for film or series, strong stylized acting chops, and someone comfortable mentoring junior animators. Fully remote with extended health benefits.
  ​Posted: July 19, 2026.
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• ​Motion Graphics Artist (MGFX) - Fractal Picture · Goregaon West, Mumbai, India (on-site)​
  Mid-level motion design role covering kinetic typography, composition and animation for feature film sequences, digital campaigns and presentations. They're asking for 3 to 4 years and advanced After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Illustrator. Apply directly to hr@fractalpicture.studio with your reel.
  ​Posted: July 21, 2026.​
  ​
• ​3D Animator (Blender / Maya) - Lead Vision · Sector 1, Vaishali, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India (on-site)
  ​Early to mid-career slot for animators with 1 to 3 years of studio experience, focused on character locomotion, body mechanics and weight. Maya or Blender both fine. Unreal or Unity exposure and mocap cleanup are listed as bonuses. Reel and CV to hr@theleadvision.com. Posted: July 19, 2026.

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The Random Stuff

🛠️ Arc is dead. I switched to Zen.

I've been living inside Arc for about four years now. It was the first time I ever fully moved off Chrome. Everything went there. Spaces, bookmarks, my whole workflow. The thing was just so good.

Then I started noticing weird stuff. YouTube stuttering. General sluggishness. So I went digging.

Turns out Arc has been on life support for a while. The Browser Company stopped active development back in May 2025 and went all in on Dia, their AI-first browser. Then Atlassian bought the whole company for $610 million, closing October 2025.

Arc still runs. It still gets Chromium security patches. But zero new features, no roadmap, no team. It's a frozen product.

And here's the part that actually got me, because it's a brutal product lesson: Spaces, the single most praised feature in Arc, was only used by 5 to 12% of users. The calendar preview? 0.4%. They were burning $30 million a year building things almost nobody touched.

Josh Miller's own words in his letter: Arc was simply too different, with too many new things to learn, for too little reward.

Oof.

I've tried Dia. And look, it's fine, I'm good with AI in my workflow. But it doesn't feel like a browser to me. It feels like a giant ChatGPT window that happens to load web pages. I still want my old browsing experience.

So a couple of hours ago I switched to Zen.

​

It is such a shameless Arc copycat that it just works. Workspaces, Compact Mode, Split View, Glance. Free, open source, Mac, Windows and Linux. If you loved Arc, you'll be at home in about ninety seconds.

The one real difference: Zen is built on Firefox and Gecko, not Chromium. So your Chrome extensions don't come with you. You have to find the Firefox equivalents on Mozilla's add-on catalog.

Which also means I can't just import from Arc. I have to rebuild all my spaces, favorites and bookmarks by hand.

That's a bummer. Genuinely annoying. It's a couple of hours of setup I do not have right now. But we'll figure it out.

If you want to stay on Chromium instead, Brave gives you vertical tabs and keeps your Chrome extensions, and Vivaldi is the pick if you want maximum customization. Neither one scratches the Arc itch the way Zen does, in my opinion.

But if you've been an Arc person for years like me… start planning your exit now. Don't wait until it breaks.

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🎬 F1: The Movie

Quick context on how I watch things these days.

We're still renovating the house. No living room yet. So my viewing setup is… my computer, at lunch, for about an hour. Sometimes I go out. Sometimes I just want to sit down, shut up, and watch something.

Usually I avoid big films for that slot. Too much commitment, wrong screen.

I broke the rule for this one and holy shit.

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F1 is already one of the most nerve-wracking sports on earth for me. Insanely intense, and just gorgeous to film. Then you drop Brad Pitt in the middle of it, playing it so freaking cool and so chill, and the contrast is a killer cocktail. All that mechanical violence around him, and he's just… relaxed.

Joseph Kosinski directed it, which explains a lot. And the camera team is led by Claudio Miranda, the same cinematographer as Top Gun: Maverick. You can feel that DNA in every shot.

Pitt and Damson Idris did real training and drove at over 180 mph on actual Formula One tracks. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen show up as themselves. It's not fake. That's why it hits.

It picked up four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
​
Terrific movie. Go watch it. 👀

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🤖 Anthropic just gave away the whole AI curriculum for free

Saw this on Instagram and had to go check it was real.

Anthropic Academy. Anthropic's official free learning platform, launched March 2026. Their own courses, taught by them, on their own tools.

I counted the live catalog. 20 courses. Plus a separate learning path on top.

The range is genuinely wide. Claude 101 for everyday work tasks. AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations, which is about collaborating with AI effectively, efficiently, ethically and safely. Introduction to Claude Cowork for working on your actual files and projects.

Then it goes deep. Building with the Claude API. Two full Model Context Protocol courses, intro and advanced. Claude Code 101 and Claude Code in Action. Agent skills. Subagents.

​

And there are versions built for specific people. AI Fluency for Small Businesses. AI Fluency for Builders. For educators, for students, for nonprofits.

That last group is the one I'd point at if you're freelancing. Small Businesses and Builders. That's us.

All of it free. Every course, every quiz, every certificate. You don't even need an Anthropic account. Just a login on the course platform.

Now compare that to the AI bootcamps floating around right now charging two grand for roughly the same material, taught by someone who read the docs last month.

​

And the AI Fluency track was built with actual professors, Joseph Feller at University College Cork and Rick Dakan at Ringling College. That's not a marketing funnel dressed up as a course.

I haven't gone through it yet. I might actually go for a certificate if it makes sense for what I'm building.

And look, I'm not naive. It's obviously in their interest to teach the world to use their own products. That's the whole play.

But I still think it's pretty cool that they do it this way. Free, open, no upsell. In 2026 that's rarer than it should be.

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Like what you're reading? Don't keep it to yourself.
​Forward this to one person who'd love it.
That's how we grow this thing. One animator at a time. 🥰

Philippe Duvin​
Founder, Animator NOW

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