The Last Song Teaser - Motion Graphics Assignment

The Last Song is about eighteen-year-old Veronica Miller reconnecting with her estranged father the summer after her graduation.  She rediscovers love in various forms and learns to forgive and move on.  This is my favourite movie because of its great writing, its happy ending and my emotional connection to it. 

*Spoiler Alert*

The concept behind this trailer is a foreshadowing of the end.  When her father passes away, Ronnie packs his belongings in boxes, some of which include photos.  Furthermore, the setting (the beach and water) plays a key role in the film and its climaxes.  Therefore, I took pictures of objects and scenery that represented some of the key images and points of the film and had them collect in a pile on top of a water-like background.  The photos appear in almost a chronological order, with sheet music representing 'the last song'.  These photos symbolize the film in a condensed way.

Ronnie's Song (the last song): Ronnie finishing up the song that her dad started for her because his cancer got worse.

The target audience for the film is majorly teenaged girls to young female adults and for this particular trailer, even more specifically, photographers and music lovers.  The photos represent the beautiful and natural scenery shown throughout the film and the music, representing the greatest theme, is revealed by the chosen track and the title.  The tone of the music also indicates the more serious and deep feelings and messages of the film.

A lot of the film takes place on the beach in a very scenic, natural and calm setting.

I used Adobe After Effects for the video aspect and Pro Tools 9 to edit my music.  I used keyframes for position, scale and rotation on a 3D plane to create the effect of the photos floating in.  I also put a white boarder around every photo, using parent connections to move it with the images.  Furthermore, I moved the keyframes to fall in time with the louder hits of the song.  Lastly, I used keyframes for opacity for the fades and position to reveal the music lines.

Keyframes were used to make the photos float on screen and a white layer beneath each image was used to create a photo-like effect.

My original ideas included a) the title being revealed by waves from a beach; b) video footage of a piano and sheet music; and c) having the photos collect in a box or being washed away by a tide.  However, due to the weather and time limit, I decided to make it simple.  In addition, AE was difficult to get used to at first.  The 3D effect and many layers caused some images to cut into each other as they intersect on different planes.  Therefore, I opted to only use one plane to rotate the images.  Also, I decreased the Z plane, in respect to position, to bring the image ‘closer’ to the viewer in order to get rid of the overlapping of images.

Keyframing the size and position on the z-axis gave the impression that the photos were falling on to the screen.

Although the final product is not what I initially planned, I am happy with the outcome.  Some of the key skills that I`ve obtained is how to use the 3D planes, add audio and pre-compose many layers.  I enjoyed using the 3D effect because it gave depth to my project, and the music, even though only five seconds long, helped make my piece even better and less dry.  Lastly, the pre-compose option really made editing all of the layers much easier because I didn`t have to do them individually.  All in all, the AE unit was fun, despite the frustration and long nights.  I would definitely give it another shot if the opportunity arises.

Ronnie's Song
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2010/4/28/1272467297179/THE-LAST-SONG-004.jpg

Nature
http://mettelray.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/the-last-song-still-7.jpg