Just been playing around with switching the Depth of field with the camera in After Effects. Basically just set up 4 type layers in AE and then changed their positions on the Z axis. I then added a 35 mm camera and turned on the Depth of Field. If you take the Aperture right down to Zero, all the layers will always be in focus and so you need to ramp the Aperture up a touch! Then just animate (adding keyframes) the Focus Distance in between shots.
To bring the animation alive, I added some textures and put together a music stinger just to signify the change in focus. This is referred to ‘pulling’ or ‘racking’ the focus in Film terms.
Depth of Field – Camera Test from the Hatch on Vimeo.
