Anybody have experience with this?

I use Premiere and After Effects, and have produced a lot of photo montages for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Audiences are always pleased with just simple zoom-panning of images to music, but I'm looking to create something a bit more breathtaking for my current project.

I am doing a vid for a father-daughter banquet (teenage girls). I once saw a .mov of a tremendously cool flyaround through layers of grids of photos. There were all sorts of Shine effects and motion blurs, etc. The camera would focus in on an image momentarily before heading somewhere else. This is what I'd REALLY like to do, but I don't know exactly how it was created. I also can't use more than the production bundle plugins for Premiere 6.5 and AE 5.5 -- $$$

The best I've come up with right now is using Premiere's Basic 3d Filter against a gentle dynamic background. The results are mediocre.

Anybody have suggestions or .aep examples to share? Much appreciated!

Harper

I don't really know how to make exactly what you want, but maybe I have a nice idea.
If you have Photoshop, you could make a very big picture of a desk. Put photos (like polaroid) on the table with some shadows (so it looks like real).
Fly over this 'picture' and stop sometimes to zoom into a seperate picture.
You could always use some motionblur/shine effects.

It's just an idea....

This would be best done in After Effects. In After Effects 5.5 layers and cameras can be moved in 3D space. See the links below for more information on how to do the effect you described.

http://forum2.matrox.com/cgi-bin/rtx100/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=21;t=000080
http://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/fischer_john/video_wall/index.html
http://www.creativecow.net/show.php?forumid=2&page=/articles/sjostrom_bjorn/3d_ride/index.html

Thanks very much for the suggestion. I'm going for a bit more of a feminine theme, however. I'm thinking something very pink.

That concept could maybe be used with the addition of some petals scattered around...

It seems that it would be difficult to create a convincing 3D effect with only a flat image and drop shadows. I was hoping to have the camera angle a bit, and not just move along a plane.

Maybe I'm overstepping my abilities or time availability to even consider such an effect.

Harper Abbot

Christopher - just saw your post.

That's exactly the effect I was referring to. I'll check out the tutorials and see if it's something I'm ready to dive into.

Thanks a bunch!

Harper Abbot

You're welcome. Looks like we were both writing our posts at the same time!

http://www.aeprojects.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=2

also, you might try the 3d assistants from http://digitalanarchy.com. In my opinion, they'll completely change your approach to doing montages...

Best,

Page