OK, on America’s Got Talent last night, one of the magicians, (Nathan Blick?), did a very clever trick. He’s done variations of it in several appearances, but less concentrate on last night, because it was simple and I can’t figure it out.
He comes onto the stage pulling a wagon - sort of an oversized Radio Flyer-type wagon, with a structure on it the size of a small telephone booth. The structure is made of clear plastic/vinyl, and made to look like an oversized Barbie package. He pulls up a small curtain which was straddling the structure at the bottom, leaves it there for a second, pulls it away, and reveals a woman (dressed as a Barbie figure, leading to a bit of comedy schtick thereafter).
The wagon appears much too small to conceal the woman in it’s base. The structure has clear walls all the way around, and he does a 360 loop as he brings it on stage so you can see there’s nothing unusual behind it. It’s transparent so it appears there can be no false walls or anything. The wagon base is elevated from the floor so it appears impossible that the girl came up from the floor, and you can see over the top so it appears impossible she came down from above.
I had it Tivo’d and watched in slo-mo and saw nothing obvious…
My guess is by one of the methods that you’ve dismissed as being unlikely. Probably the wagon is big enough to conceal the girl, or you just think that the case is transparent, etc.
I don’t really see what is entertaining about this stuff. I find it more infuriating than anything else. I mean, there are any number of feats of strength or intellect that I can say (like with magic) “how did he do that?” I have no idea “how” Lance Armstrong won the Tour all those times for instance other than that he practiced riding a bike just like Criss Angel practices doing all those “amazing” tricks.
I mean, if you ask Lance “how did you do it” he’ll explain it to you. If you ask Criss Angel he’ll act like a jerk and tell you it’s a “secret.” So to me, magic is just the art of keeping things a secret, which I don’t find entertaining.
The only magicians I like are the ones who can show you how the trick works, and it’s still awesome. Close-up magicians who excel at sleight-of-hand are great, as are insane card wizards like Ricky Jay – ie, stuff where it’s the mind-blowing skill at their art that makes it great, rather than silly gizmos or hidden wires or whatever.
It’s a shame Randy Pitchford from Gearbox doesn’t post here, he could probably tell you as he used to be a magician. I remember once in the pub he showed me how to do David Blaine’s levitation trick, and it blew my mind at the time, perhaps partly because it was so incredibly simple. I subsequently repeated it for several impressed friends and relatives, although I think enough people know how it’s done now that it’s hard to get away with.
No, it’s the one where you stand away from your audience at a 45-degree angle, and then raise yourself up on the ball of your furthermost foot while keeping the foot that’s facing the audience perfectly straight. If you get the angle right the audience can’t see where the ball of your foot is making contact with the floor and it doesn’t indeed appear that you are levitating.
Yes, and they’re always started by the same person, who claims he said something in a room full of 10 other people who think she’s batshit insane. Well, except her husband, who keeps saying “LANCE DOPED OMGWTF”
How many tests does he have to take before people get the picture?
As with special effects for movies, “magic” stage effects are often far more dull and unentertaining to explain. It’s far more fun to watch the effect and be amazed by it, than to learn how it was accomplished, in most cases. Often, if you’re interested in how a director was able to pull off a “trick” in one of their movies, all you have to do is buy a specialized trade magazine or their “Special Edition” DVD to find out. With most commercially successful magicians, it’s no different. Walk into a magic store and buy the instructions or a DVD. It’s intellectual property just like a song or a video game. There’s nothing to get infuriated about.
Ha, that sounds like the old “watch me pull my finger off trick.”
I had a cousin who would make it appear as if he yanked his right pointer finger off at the second knuckle and then reattach it. It was really just his left thumb that “came off.” He had his finger curled into this fist.
