[John Cuevas]

Wanna provide a link to said trailer?

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Here is Compsetter

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Are you more interested in moving the photo in AE? If that’s the case you should look at this page of Tutorials and start with the one on keyframes.

If you are trying more to composite a picture into an image like that, with shadows and faux camera moves that’s more complicated. You need to add the picture into scene, composite it so it looks to be a part of the scene, add shadows, add depth of field then animate the entire scene at once to look like a camera move.

If you have the photos, I would put them on a table, light them and do this with a video camera. And if you can’t do that, shoot them with a still camera and animate the jpeg in AE. It will be a lot quicker than trying to create a realistic composite.

Lastly, if you don’t have the photos, you could even just use a placeholder photo and then replace that with your electronic images in AE. That would still look more realistic than trying to create the scene from scratch.

If you have more specific questions, let me know and I’ll see how I can help.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

FYI, you could recreate it in AE if you wanted, but it won’t look as good as it would if you really did shoot it.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

In those instances, I’m pretty sure they actually used something to stand the photo up, added some lights and actually shot picture.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

In the image where you get the AE warning, turn off 3D for the layer. Particle emitters like CC Particle World and Particular, use AE’s 3D space, can interact with cameras, but they are not true 3D effects. Just for an example enable 3d on a CC Particle layer, twirl open your rotation and rotate the X axis. It becomes flat, because it’s not really 3D.

It’s that limitation why your second picture the logo and particles are not interacting correctly. You can use the camera to get the particles to rotate with the logo. But based on the layer stack, the particles will always be on top of the logo.

If you use trapcode particular, you can set the logo layer as an obscuration layer and particular will look at it’s position in Z space and block out the particles behind it. It also has other methods for turning off particles based on position in Z-space.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Is it possible to just duplicate your text, flip it & position it where the reflection would be? Then use masks to constrain it to the table and mess with the opacity to blend it in? Probably not ideal, but might get the job done.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

There are a couple of scripts you could take a look at from AEScripts.com.

Randomizer

Distribute Layers

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

For starters take a look at these 2 FAQ: FAQ: Why is my output file huge, and why doesn’t it play back smoothly in a media player?

Also FAQ: What is the best format for rendering and exporting from After Effects?

After reading those, the main question for render/compression what are you trying to achieve with your renders? Do you need to deliver this somebody, is it for broadcast, youtube or you just want to render out the video to see something you created.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Here is one approach to doing this: Photo Mosiac

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.