I enjoy watching a magic act, especially trying to spot the misdirection, props and timing.
Derren Brown or Penn and Teller are the business for me!
Now I got a video of Criss Angel and was blown away by several tricks:
levitating between the roofs of two buildings
walking across a swimming pool
passing through the glass of a shop window
levitating onto a chair
In each case, Criss clearly implied that this was ‘street magic’ and that the many bystanders were both not involved in the trick and completely baffled by it.
However a US program called ‘Magic’s Greatest Secrets’ has been shown on English TV. It features a masked magician who explains all the above tricks (plus many others).
I found it very disappointing that the first 3 tricks above either used every bystander / onlooker as stooges, or it would be completely obvious how the trick was done if you were there.
Here are my questions:
who is the masked magician?
should he reveal these secrets?
should magicians show ‘street tricks’ on camera where everyone present is in on the trick?
Wikipedia says the answer to your first question is Val Valentino. Your remaining questions aren’t suitable for General Questions, so you might want to ask a mod to move the thread for you.
I believe he stated at the end of the series, when he unmasked himself, that that was his reason for revealing the secrets behind the big tricks: the tricks he exposed were basically old hat, and he wanted magicians to create new tricks that were even harder to figure out. I guess he (and whoever came up with the whole “Secrets Revealed” thing) got tired of magicians leaning on the same rusty old illusions and wanted to kickstart some innovation.
You could do it if you could think them up. That means you could do them the same way you could do a novel or an album or a movie, i.e. probably not at all to a professional level.
However, Criss Angel certainly uses stooges and everyone involved is in on the trick.
I am not sure I would call these “camera tricks.” For example, Angel’s “walk through window” trick does require complicity on behalf of some observers when done at that scale, but you still have to know what you’re doing. I have a version that you can hold in one hand (“pencil through window”) that requires a trick device (which I got) plus the necessary presentation skills (which I ain’t got :rolleyes:). There’s a lot more to performing magic than knowing how it’s done. Penn & Teller demonstrate their balls & cups trick with clear plastic cups and you *still *can’t figure out how they manage it!
Yeah, it takes a bit of ingenuity to design Criss Angel’s tricks, but then, it also took a bit of ingenuity to design Christopher Reeves’ flying trick. But nobody would call Christopher Reeves a magician, and it doesn’t spoil anything to know that he’s lying on a green pedestal against a green background with the rest of the scene edited in.
They’re not camera tricks, but anyone present can see how they are done.
For example, before Criss Angel walks across a hotel swimming pool, he needs to clear everyone out of the area, spend about 20 minutes setting up, then get everyone who actually appears on camera in and around the pool (all stooges) to pretend they are hotel guests who have no idea what’s going on.
If you phrase the question in the form, “what does the magicians’ code say about this?” then I think there is a GQ answer. But you asked if he should do something, which I think calls for an opinion.
The point is that without the camera there would be no trick. He would not be able to pull off that kind of magic live, which makes it no different from the magic in latest Harry Potter movie.
I agree, but a better analogy would be the Blair Witch Project. Criss Angel’s fakeness level is somewhere between the Toyota Tacoma and Tundra commercials.
Penn and Teller only show how their own tricks are done, which seems fine to me.
And even when they explain them you can still marvel at the skill involved.
By contrast, I could do most of Criss Angel’s tricks mentioned above - with perhaps one quick rehearsal.
Some posters have referred to Wiki and said that he is a pro magician called Valentino. This isn’t quite correct. Valentino is a professional magician who did, indeed, take the role of The Masked Magician in the original series of specials that aired some years ago. The series that is currently being shown on British TV, and to which I believe you are referring, is a new series of Masked Magician shows. Same format, same everything, but Valentino is no longer involved. I don’t believe the identity of this new Masked Magician is as yet widely known in the magic community. I have seen the matter discussed on several message boards, and some accusations have been made. But I’m not aware of a definitive answer.
Depends on your point of view.
There are many shades of opinion, among magicians and non-magicians alike. Personally, I don’t think these shows do a great deal of harm to magic, because (a) generally speaking, members of the ‘lay’ public don’t retain much of the information, (b) some of the ‘secrets’ revealed aren’t the actual methods that professional use, (c) there’s a lot more to a magic performance than just the secret of how the trick is done, (d) these shows can only address the simplest of secrets such as showing how a trick cabinet works, and can’t cover advanced sleight of hand, detailed psychological methods and so on, so there’s a lot still left in the magical armoury, (e) the professionals that I know haven’t reported any actual damage to their business arising from these shows.
All that having been said, I think it’s a bit sad that the people involved in these shows don’t have anything better, more creative or more constructive to offer. Magicians and illusionists have worked hard over the years to devise creative and ingenious illusions that can create a sense of wonder and entertain audiences all over the world. The people behind these shows have nothing better to offer than giving the secrets away, methods that were in some cases the work of many months and years of effort, just to sell a few more packets of breakfast cereal and dogfood.
It’s true that the damage isn’t all that great (as I’ve said above), and yes there are some people who like to see how the tricks are done and lack any broader or more long-term perspective. But it’s still a shame. As Emerson wrote, ‘To take apart is the art of those who cannot construct’.
Even if I know what the magician is doing, I can still respect the artistry of the performance. Heck, a while back we deconstructed a David Copperfield trick and this process was more entertaining for me than the trick itself.
One problem with this line of thinking is that the magic world is slightly different to other fields. Many tricks have been around for a hundred years or more, magicians just reinvent them for a new audience.
They read old dusty tomes in search of tricks that may have been forgotten and then rehash them. The innovation comes more with the presentation. They may hide the basic trick so much that even other magicians may not realise which trick it is.
Not saying there’s no innovation, just that (to some extent) there’s a finite number of basic tricks. So calling tricks “old hat” or “rusty” doesn’t really mean anything in magic terms. That’s the reason why magicians get so snotty about revealing secrets - there’s only so many of them. Once one gets out into the public domain then that’s that trick ruined for another 50 years until everyone forgets about it again.
I guess what I’m saying is that the masked magician’s justification is bogus and, as a magician himself, he knows that. His real justification is that he wants to make money same as everyone else - he makes up the other justification as a cover story.
