Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday season and are rested and ready to kick off 2026!
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Here's the latest edition of my monthly motion design newsletter, where I bring you fresh tutorials, a sneak peak of what’s coming soon, a handy tip, and a random recommendation!

🥳 New

I was recently working on an After Effects project with a lot of layers and I wanted to quickly select just the soloed layers. Why is there not an easy way to do that?!

So, I asked Claude to write a script and then set up a keyboard shortcut to run the script. And now, I have a super easy and quick way to select all the soloed layers–and you can too!

Download the script here: Select Soloed Layers - AE Script.zip​

To set up the script and keyboard shortcut:

• Put the .jsx file in the Script folder:
  • Mac: /Applications/Adobe After Effects [version]/Scripts/
  • Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects [version]\Support Files\Scripts\
• Restart After Effects (if it was open).
• You can now run the script by going to File → Scripts → Select Soloed Layers.
• To set up the keyboard shortcut, go to Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts.
• Search for “Select Soloed Layers” in the search box (you may have to scroll down to see the script).
• Click in the empty area next to Select Soloed Layers and below Shortcut to activate the shortcut box.
• Type any shortcut you want. If the shortcut you choose is already assigned to something else, it will warn you. I choose option A. (That’s alt A on Windows. Command/Ctrl A selects all layers so option A makes sense to me.)
• Click OK.
• Now your assigned keyboard shortcut should select any soloed layers!

🤫 Sneak Peak

I’m working on a special, brand new, exclusive (read: NOT available on Skillshare), beginner-friendly After Effects class!

I’m so excited to share this with you soon! If you’re interested in ultimately creating science animations or explainer videos, this class is definitely for you. It will also be perfect for any After Effects beginner who needs a solid path to learning the essential skills to become a professional motion designer.

⚡ Quick Tip

In After Effects, holding down option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while you click on the Solo switch will turn off Solo for all layers before turning it on for only the current layer.

👉 Random Recommendation

📙 I recently read A Story is a Deal: How to Use the Science of Storytelling to Lead, Motivate, and Persuade by Will Storr. While this book is not about animation, I found it very relevant to my work. If animation is a method of communication, and storytelling is how humans have communicated for thousands of years, then storytelling and animation go hand-in-hand. A couple years ago I also read The Science of Storytelling by the same author, which I’d also recommend.

Megan Friesth

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