TelBoy

Was watching that 50 greatest illusions last night. Some astounding stuff in there. Penn and Teller are nutters.

But, how does David Blain, or for that matter David Copperfield, do those illusions? Any magicians on here?
Like one of them said, it's a tough job to trick people without making them annoyed at being duped. I'm on the knife-edge here - i need to feel smug about knowing how something/anything like that is done, but if anyone knows the secrets to the above specifically, PLEASE tell me!!

richmilly

Its kinda hard to explain but i saw how he did it on one of them magic revealed programs.

What you do is put your feet together and stand at angle to your audience. So if the audience are on your right you stand at an angle so they can see the whole of your right foot and only the back of your left foot. Then lift the whole of your right foot off the ground and the back of your left foot of the ground, so you are lifting yourself up on the front of your foot.

This will look like you are levatating about 3-4 inches off the ground. To do it any higher they use camera magic!

Hope you can work out what i tried to explain! Have fun levatating.

Dream Weaver

Superb

Just tried the levitating trick richmilly, and it is surprisingly convincing. Fair enough I was only looking in the mirror, but at the angle you say, it did look like I was flying/floating

DW

Tiggs

the show on a couple of weeks back about tricks revealed went right through 80% of Blanes routine- im affraid, while very interesting, i would not bother watching a Blane show again as there isnt much he does that cant be explained now.

Tiggs

richmilly

wooooooohooooooo someone understands my waffle

You also gotta try fool your audience sayin you can only do it once a day or summit!

Then you can be the next david blane

Jolly Green Monster 2

Those Revealed programs are really interesting but like said above really you watch it feeling that it had spolt the real shows now..

Damned if I watch it, Damned if I don't.... if you know what I mean... half the fun is trying to work it out...

JGM

Dracoro

Come on, let's have some more tricks revealed here!!!!
BTW, when is/was this revealed program on? any websites out there showing how to do this stuff?

Tiggs

read this:
http://magic.about.com/library/weekly/aa022300a.htm

it seems the masked magician series has upset a LOT of ppl in the business!

Tiggs

mik

Yeah I saw this too.

Important part is to keep your heels together.

Tried it with the wife ~ freaked her out! Hilarious.

Mates planned next.....

MichelleWRX1994

My brother can do it really well

I just look like a muppet when I try it

cletterridge

This is a trick called the 'Banducci' and is performed as described above. The so called 'Better Banducci' is simply to do it quickly, then turn around to the guys that saw it and say "did you see it? did you see it? How high was I?"

Then you use your hands to indicate a height (say 4 inches) and then slowly expand them while saying "Was it this high? What, no, THIS high?" as your hands expand to a foot apart. The audience for some odd psychological reason are suckered into believing what you say as opposed to what they saw. (This little mind trick has a whole range of applications.)

In the programmes, he did use wires for the telly shots of him levitating, then edited on a shot of the audience who actually saw a 'real' Banducci, but not the one you saw.

Dream Weaver

The angle has to be perfect though, as you have to shift your weight onto one leg to keep the illusion real, and can lean too far (from my experiences of trying it in the mirror this arvo ).

Quite difficult, but i will also try it on the better half tonight

DW

BOB.T

The one with the lightbulb really impressed me

Bob

Jen

The one with the lightbulb was amazing!

My mate Tez can do the levitating really well...

Here's one I want to know how it's done...pack of cards (normal), two people sign one card each on the front and the both cards are placed back to back (i.e. signitures facing out) his hands (covering the cards) and when they are released they're one card...i.e. the thickness of one card, but with both signitures on both sides...really cool! and done in the middle of the pub, so no wierd stuff!! Anyway, any ideas?!

Jen

Dracoro

What is this lightbulb trick??

Tiggs

jen,
check my link above- it has a few tricks explained on there- but be prepared! after 30mins of surfing it today i was left with no desire to ever bother seeing a magic/con show again!

richmilly

can some one give me a link to this lightbulb trick as i cant find it on the link and the trick sounds interesting!

Rich

sasman

So does anyone know if Darren Brown is manipulating the people for real, if so i'm impressed.

P1Fanatic

Is Darren Brown that geezer who does the 1 inch punch and reads peoples minds? Only seen one episode of his programme but it was very good.

Dream Weaver

Tried the levitating on the missus last night and she was gobsmacked.

Couldn't work out how i was doing it, and presumed I was lifting myself up using the nearby vacuum cleaner, til I did it again with arms out

DW

TopBanana

I did the levitating trick to some friends of mine a couple of new years eves back. Very funny - they were convinced (and slightly drunk!)

imlach

The show that told you how he did it was as explained before - ie, he only levitates a few inches off the ground using above technique...

But later, they reshoot with him attached to cables etc....
and they only show the back of the jacket of ONE of the public - ie, it is someone else filmed later with the same jacket!! - watch the real thing again and it is so obvious it is setup!!!

Remember, it's an illusion!!! Not Magic!




[Edited by imlach - 5/7/2002 4:46:06 PM]