What about the standing on the pole for two days thing? Or the embedded in a block of ice thing?
david blaine---magic ??
- Thread starter marketsurfer
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You want all the secrets, huh?
I haven't seen the "standing on the pole illusion", but I'll give you the "embedded in ice". I'm sharing these as they've already been publicy outed elsewhere. Otherwise, I'm sworn to secrecy.
There are 2 people taking shifts in the ice block. One is the illusionist, the other a stunt double. There is a trap door leading to a small living quarters underneath, where they take turns sleeping, eating, watching TV for a week. The switch is made quite fast, like a tag team, when hardly anyone is around, the crew working on the outside of the ice block adding ice and cleaning it, causing heat to diffuse and further steam up and block the view from onlookers.
It's actually quite comfortable inside the ice, a mild temperature. That's why the ice melts and has to be contually worked on throughout the week.
The last day, at the planned moment, the illusionist is in the ice as the crew breaks through. He acts as if he's suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion, acting as if dazed so that no one (in the crowd or the media) talks to him or bothers him while he's rushed away by ambulance. Otherwise, he'd have to be a much better actor to keep up the pretense of feigning illness.
Later that night, he privately has a great dinner and wild sex with his girlfriend. But wouldn't you too, after a week of living in a dugout with your stunt double? I'm assuming that, and it's not necessarily part of the illusion.
I learned at an early age that "simpler is better" when it comes to magic. Always look for the obvious solution. People think that something has to be difficult to be effective. Not so.
Did you know that learned professors in universities have offered elaborate theories involving shoes with hydraulic pumps to explain how they believe Blaine "levitated" himself... when all he did was stand on his toe?
Thanks for the explanation. Are you a magician yourself?
A must-see is the 4 part series "Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed" which recently aired on FX. It really cleared up the mystery behind most of the illusions and tricks that have had me baffled. (It also knocked off Penn & Teller, David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy and Lance Burton from my list of shows to see here in Vegas.)
I disagree, all is not fair in creating an illusion and the levitation trick is a perfect example why. His entire schtick is based on the premise of doing close-up magic on people. There is no way his feet could get that high performing that trick, yet cut away to all the clips of amazed onlookers. It's one thing to perform legitimate magic, it's another to mix in staged stunts that are impossible to perform legitimately. As you would expect, these also happen to be his more 'amazing' tricks. By doing this he's profiting off everyone he can sucker into believing ALL of his magic is real.
It's no wonder all the magic expose shows are out now. Blaine is the Milli Vanilli of magic and he's ruining it for the magicians who really know what they're doing.
Let's apply that reasoning to another field: Movie making. They use fake sets, computer manipulation, matte paintings, stunt and body doubles, and editing, et al, and with these creating "events" that are impossible to have the actors perform legitmately. Yet no one would agree that they haven't made a legitmate movie, or that these are not genuine actors.Quote from MrDinky:
I disagree, all is not fair in creating an ... It's one thing to perform legitimate magic, it's another to mix in staged stunts that are impossible to perform legitimately...he's ruining it for the magicians who really know what they're doing.
Who can really rule out what technique is permissable and which is not? As it is, a magician may pretend that he's bound and limited by the very handcuffs he knows that he is not bound and limited by. The very nature of the magic is to fool the audience. A magician fools his audience just as much by what he takes care not to show as by what he wants them to see. Why would he be restricted by any so-deemed "allowable" technique in any other aspect of the performance piece when it can be used to also fool the audience, giving them what the magician desires they see?
Was Edgar Bergen any less of a ventriloquist because he was unconventionally on the radio and audiences at home couldn't watch his lips? He was the most successful act on radio. When Mrs. Roosevelt appeared on the show, she instinctively reached out to shake Charlie McCarthy's hand, so convincing was the performance. Even though Bergen's lips moved, did the exact technique matter?
The famous broadcast of Orsen Welle's "War of the Worlds", though not intended to make people believe it was real, did just that to those tuning in during the program. It caused mass hysteria because it seemed authentic, even though it was some actors and sound effects with a script and a director. But the unintended effect on the audience testifies to the greatness of the piece. It was great because, as outlandish as it was, it appeared to be real. Doesn't matter about how they went about it.
There are those magicians who perform their tricks with a wink of the eye, and you know they know that you understand that it's a trick, like Copperfield, and there are those that surround their magic with a pretense that it's real, such as Blaine, Kreskin, Houdini and Blaine. It adds a greater mystery and awe to the effect.
After seeing his special when it first aired, a google search revealed that he has some kind of cane that he extends and then pushes off of that to raise his feet. That's why he has to have the spectators directly in line behind him so they can't see what he's doing in front.Quote from ElCubano:
It is done thru angles....he will never perform that trick straight on...at an angle he then raises his body with one foot while making the other foot seem as it has levitated from the ground( leaving it straight ) and also covering the foot that is actually levitating the body...........