They had a special a couple of days ago with Harry Anderson “revealing” some magic tricks. While some were actually explained, a couple weren’t.
One was where a group of people sitting in rows on a special stage on Waikiki beach, facing the Diamondhead volcano. Two assistants raised a silk the size of a beadsheet, and walked across the stage. Diamondhead had disappeared behind them and when the silk was lowered, the volcano was an island. Then they reversed it, “for legal reasons”. How was this done?
The audience is in on it. THEY don’t see the volcano “move”, or the Staue of Liberty dissappear… Only the camera does.
It’s simple- the camera pans ever so slightly to one side, so the scene shown appears different in the background, but the foreground remains the same.
The FOX specials that showed the tricks detailed this one. They drove a tank in, shut it down, and literally chained it down. The camera was “looking” through a picture-frame kind of thing, at the tank. There were girls on the tank, too.
When the “magician” closed the “drapes” in front of the picture frame, the whole camera platform with attached frame, which the magician was standing on, rolled sideways several feet. As far as the camera was concerned, the magician and window never “moved”.
When the drapes were opened, there were the girls- who moved when the camera did- standing there with loose pieces of chain. In other words, an entirely different set of chains, several feet to one side.
It’s the same way Copperfield did the Statue of Liberty- the camera simply panned to a section of the sky a few degrees to one side of the actual statue. The helicopters and spotlights also moved over on cue and simply swept around a different patch of sky.
Everyone in the audience, the chopper pilots, the spotlight operators, etc, were in on it.
While the silk curtain was raised, they moved the special stage, curtain and camera. The camera does not show that it is moving, as it is focused on the curtain and stage which is also moving. When they finally drop the curtain, the volcano is gone simply because the camera is now aimed somewhere else. The silk curtain is raised again and the platform with camera and all is moved back to its original position and voila, the volcano is back.
They have used the same method to make the statue of liberty, tanks, ships, etc, disappear.
Now that you know, you’re not going to enjoy seeing this trick again.
Jack- as I recall, that was the rationale behind the FOX series… the magician in the mask (somebody mentioned a while back he’d been ‘unmasked’ by various methods of deduction) basically stated he was exposing the old, tired and hackneyed tricks, in an effort to perhaps stir other professional magicians to work a little harder on developing some NEW tricks.
I, for one, have lost much interest in “magic”- other than maybe the Penn & Teller stuff- because damn near all of it is a 30-minute show that contains only three “tricks”, with ten minutes of dancing women, smoke, lights and lasers, bad music and worse acting.
If the masked magician actually convinced somebody to rethink his show and piss-poor tricks, I’m all for it.
Actually, the audience doesn’t have to be in on the gag. The turntable usually moves very slowly so that there is no feeling of motion, and things are set up so that they can’t see any other things for reference (stars, nearby buildings, etc.). They get distracted by the showmanship and don’t realize what’s happening.
I find this sort of trick immensly unimpressive. Give me Slydini any day.
I agree that most of the stage shows that are televised are all song, dance, and flash and not nearly as much magical entertainment as there used to be. That’s why I don’t watch all that many magic shows on TV anymore. I suggest that you try attending some magic conventions. There you will see some really REALLY GOOD magic without so much dance and flash
I’m sorry you feel that way. Again, I recommend that you attend some magic conventions. You will see that there is new stuff coming out all the time and that dealers are always looking for new items. Granted, there will always be stuff out there that is crap, or stuff that is based on somone else’s ideas, but there is new stuff being produced all the time.
Besides all that, what is wrong with the classic way that an illusion is done? The reason that magicians continue to use the classic methods is because they work, and work well.
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With regard to the OP, I believe it was Franz Harary who performed the Diamondhead illusion. I don’t know how it was done, but I’m not so sure it wasn’t a “moving camera” angle type of thing because you can still see the island where the volcano was supposed to be, but the volcano just wasn’t there, it was moved out to sea. Yes, the audience was probably in on the trick. Franz is known to do that sort of thing.
Glenoled, the masked magician was revealed as Valentino… Yeah, I’ve never heard of the guy either.