This effect is so hard to do... I'm stupid?

There's this film I'm doing.
To cut a long story short, the mad scientist is sniping the hero with a laser cannon (a telescope). There's a couple of shots of him scheming, and then he crouches down and aims his weapon.

Now, I've got this shot along the barrel, right along the length of it. What I WANTED to do as a practical effect was play with the manual focus so it'd start focused on the closest part of the barrel, and eventually focus on the mad scientists face.
Unfortunately, this just didn't work.
Is there any way I can fake this depth of field change in After Effects? I have tried extensively, but nothing did it for me.

Thanks in advance.

 

You probably know more about AE than I do, but the only thing I can think of is to mask and separate the scientist and telescope into two different comps and keyframe some opposing blurs.

Make sense?

Probably not, I'm new to this.

 

Yeah, I did try that. It kind of worked. I tried it with only two or three masks though, so it was fairly ugly.
Do you think it'd work better with more masks?

 

Undoubtedly. It will be a lot of work, but mask it off as cross sections of the barrel. Imagine the barrel was a 3d object, and there are cross sections every 2-3 inches or so. Place a mask there, then blend.

~Neszis~

 

Cool, I'll give it a go. I'm really set on having that effect in there.

 

You could also paint a Z-Depth map and use that if you have the PB...but for a moving 2D shot that would be a pain in the arse.

My advice: if you can, reshoot. Position the camera way far back from the gun, but zoom way in. That'll shorten the depth of field immensely. Then you can play with the focus.

M. Scott

 

It's a bit expensive but have a look here.

click

You can also download a demo version to work on small resolution comps to try it out.

 

Or get a steady shot of the barrel, then a shot of the mad scientist and then fade them over each other in your NLE. You don't even need AE for that.

[Dr.Phil]And you're not stupid. Never say you're stupid. Just find another way.

Calling yourself stupid is a cop out; you, like everyone on this forum, is creative, inventive and problem-solving.[/Dr.Phil]

 

That iris-e thing looks awful. It's just a friggin mask!

~Neszis~

 

It's for adding DOF to 3d animations, using z-depth channels, sorta like alpha channels, to determine what's in focus and what's not, more than it is for adding DOF to live action footage.

 

[Dr. Phil]Did you fall off the stupid tree and break every branch on the way down?[Dr. Phil ain't always so supportive]