Finding the Focus on a Period Piece with a Twist

On a recent indie feature, a Victorian-era detective story with decidedly dark comedic undertones, I found myself wrestling with maintaining consistent focus racks during quick, whip-pan transitions between serious and absurd moments. The script heavily relied on these tonal shifts, often within the same shot. What I tried was anticipating the comedic beats by slightly overshooting my marks on the 'serious' take-off, giving myself a hair more landing room on the 'absurd' beat, betting on the punchline to naturally draw the eye even if the focus wasn't absolutely perfect. What worked surprisingly well was using a combination of a small, discreet laser distance meter before the shot for my hard marks, but then trusting my eye and muscle memory for the nuanced adjustments during the actual whip-pan. The laser gave me a solid foundation, while the slight 'over-rack' gave the comedic timing an almost imperceptible breathing room for the audience's eye. What didn't work was trying to pre-map every single whip-pan with a tape measure; the spontaneity of the actor's performance often made those intricate pre-sets moot. It just ate up too much time. Do others find that a mix of careful planning and reactive, in-the-moment adjustment is often the only way to nail these tricky tonal transitions?