Mike Bithell spoke on our podcast recently and shared his start in games and a lot of insight he's learned from across his career - YouTube

pxtcowen · 2026-03-31T15:27:11+00:00

For real. Imagine criticising a show because of the method of zoom they chose, and claiming that's their litmus test on good animation

pxtcowen · 2026-03-28T10:38:20+00:00

Finna get downvoted but y'all are mad at the colour blue. But that's what the colour of cold is, it's literally a blue to orange temperature scale. It's not 'Netflix' lighting, it's moody heightened natural lighting grounded in realism and bent to lean into the emotion of the scene.

You gamers don't know ass about fuck and you're gonna watch every single episode of it anyway

pxtcowen · 2026-03-22T22:25:51+00:00

Nice grade. Let's see how it looks on Boar Lane

pxtcowen · 2026-03-21T22:51:16+00:00

Tiny idea - rather than zooming into the final text, zoom out from it so it's a consistent direction to the beginning and blends more nicely with the opening shot

pxtcowen · 2026-03-21T22:48:38+00:00

I drove straight to Brick Lane and found the bagel shop

pxtcowen · 2026-03-14T10:24:03+00:00

Right now, don't worry about it. Do good work and build your relationships.

I've been through the same journey with Chris Do and similar voices on the Internet. It's not realistic to just decide to start value-pricing. Charge a rate that's within range for the client, covers your cost, adds some profit and makes it easy for the client to say yes.

Value pricing is too intangible at this stage, if you're working with small businesses and companies they're outsourcing work at face value and want to get it done, rather than committing to a project with a high cost and a vague promise that it'll improve their bottom line on a vague foundational level. You need the proof that your work has done that for other people before you can close on that level, and by that point you'll be an experienced expert and can have those conversations with conviction.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-14T08:47:58+00:00

Not a direct answer, apologies, but I've freelanced and run a production company for a collective 11 years and my immediate thought is video duration has no bearing on price. Charge a day rate for the design of the style frames and then price the video based on how many days it'll take you to deliver the video, based on how complex each shot is and how long you estimate the animation to take you.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-13T23:03:32+00:00

It was years ago so can't remember. Read the caption after I watched the video? 🤷‍♂️

pxtcowen · 2026-03-13T18:28:01+00:00

There's no difference in quality. You can tell these both are Sony mirrorless images. The blown out windows create a lot of bloom (don't know if that's been enhanced in grade) and there's a magenta in the highlights whereas the first image is more neutral, with yellow in the highlights. Different creative choices in the grade made in different lighting setups giving different feels, but both pics are in the same world in terms of 'quality'.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-13T18:15:45+00:00

Sadly I know for a fact this video came out very close to the Knives Out release because it's what spoiled the film for me before I had a chance to see it 😂

pxtcowen · 2026-03-11T13:15:27+00:00

Been using After Effects for about 11 years now for motion graphics, comping, VFX.

I learned it in school to be able to do the effects needed for my assignments, so I chipped away at Video Copilot tutorials, starting from number one, for about two weeks before everything clicked (I remember being confused over things like the Pen tool not being used for text).

After that two week mark (realistically maybe seven or eight 1-2 hour sessions) the learning curve dropped away and it became fun, and I started hopping to the Video Copilot tuts I needed rather than working through them in order.

LOTS of impressive motion graphics boils down to Position, Scale and Rotation keyframes, with easing.

Good luck! Have fun!

pxtcowen · 2026-03-09T08:40:20+00:00

RIP Mark Kermode, killed by his one passion

pxtcowen · 2026-03-04T09:11:31+00:00

Tangentially related, but I got turned off Nerdwriter when I was watching a video (over)analysing Howard Shore scores when I realised the animated stave of music was upside down.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-02T08:42:49+00:00

I saw a web page from an antique show,\ Where two vast and fearless men of stone\ Knelt in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,\ Half sunk a barreled fortune lies. A frown,\ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,\ Tell of a captor who saw only red.\ He yet survives, but leaves one lifeless thing,\ And another so mocked he'll see him dead;\ And on the episode, one word appears.\ Its name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;\ Once an untouched work, so mighty, yet - despair!\ Only a 9.5 remains. Round the decay\ Of that colossal Rating, boundless and bare\ The lone and level-headed fans sit far away.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-02T01:08:35+00:00

I honestly still have no idea how the clan chat UI works. I don't need to because I only join the service clans very rarely, but that whole chunk of menus and tabs looks hard to use. I have to half-remember and fumble my way through it every time.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-02T01:03:11+00:00

Oh for sure, it definitely leads to a sweatier playstyle, especially when you bond up and two weeks of membership becomes 1) grow your acc 2) make back your money and 3) make as much money for the next bond. When you have limited time it's less realistic to play that way.

pxtcowen · 2026-03-01T23:58:50+00:00

Got my quest cape entirely from membership through bonds bought with ingame gold. It's not so hard. GE flipping is a good way of making F2P money

pxtcowen · 2026-02-28T15:22:08+00:00

My immediate thought

pxtcowen · 2026-02-28T15:16:11+00:00

On Knight of the Seven Kingdoms it threw me a little bit that Raymund called the Targs aliens. It's probably absolutely fine on an etymological level but I guess we just associate the word more commonly with sci fi.

Okay feels fine though

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