So how does this trick work? I consider Snopes on a par with the SD as far as credibility, but I refuse to accept that this trick is as they explain it, that it was a real, live event w./o accomplices. Looks more like a completely staged special effects shot to me (i.e. woman’s an amputee, crowd are all plants etc.)
If nobody wants to violate the, :rolleyes:, magician’s code, at least point me to some sites that do…
Read the Snopes article again. They never claim there were no plants in the audience or accomplices.
The person who is at the feet end notably doesn’t do as she’s told: she’s told to pull as if she’s pulling the woman off the bench. But when Criss Angel tells her to pull she makes as if to do so but conspicuously doesn’t. The one at the head end does. The leg end notably stays put. So I think the person at that end is a plant. There will be a reason for that: I suspect the leg end is someone bent over inside a long black skirt and if they fell off the bench that would be clear. The only clear shot of the leg end after separation doesn’t look right at all. The lower half is too long, and the waist is upright on the bench.
I can’t explain the head end except in terms of it being an amputee.
The futzing around with the short girl at the beginning is probably just to make it seem more natural when Angel goes over and “randomly” chooses his stooge. Although he doesn’t actually do that too well because just after he says “no offence” to her, he very purposively chooses his main protagonist.
Note in one of the early shots where he is futzing around with the short girls, the main protagonist is in the background. She is quite tall and is standing very stiffly, compared to the others watching. Also, they are dressed like casual people while she has virtually neck to knee covering in loose blouse and billowing long black dress.
There are several shots where the cameras cut away at crucial times.
I can see a few anomalies, but I can’t really see the full picture of how it’s done.
Note that the
The thing I’ve learned about Criss Angel is every single person seen in his video clips are in on the trick. Every single one.
Plus, he constantly cuts from camera to camera to hide edits, and has them doo annoying things like zooms and shaky pans to misdirect your attention.
He’s certainly spectacular, but I find his schtick to be very repetitious.
Thanks you, Snopes, for pointing out that “the woman is not actually being pulled apart” :rolleyes:
Yeah, all stooges, as the bad acting amply demonstrates.
The only honest witness is the camera, and for that very reason it has to be pointed away from the action at critical moments.
Totally unconvincing. I think the most revealing shot is of the amputee as she hurries away. The expertise and speed with which she walks on her hands shows clearly how accustomed she is to this. A woman who had just lost the lower part of her body might be expected to show just a tad more clumsiness.
Amateur hour.
Some of the posters at the Snopes forum say they recognize the woman on top as being from one of those “half a person” documentaries. So she’s been featured on TV before. I almost don’t consider it a real trick if it relies on finding someone with a very specific disability to help you pull it off…
It seems obvious to everyone here that the “top” woman is an amputee, and I certainly agree that this is the key part of the trick. So let’s noodle out two remaining questions:
There’s something not quite right with that black skirt/dress she’s wearing, too. If you watch it when he picks her and she walks out of the crowd toward the bench, it’s not as much the way she’s walking as it is the way the skirt moves. We only see it for a second because he gets between her and the camera and then the scene cuts.
On further viewing, now I think the amputee is on top of the contortionist, who is bent over and walking with her head between her legs. Thus the long skirt.
They may also be using some sort of brace or body form for the top woman to sit in. He’s used body forms for a lot of other tricks, including the sticking his arm through the innocent bystander, and levitation.
I’d still say they make it look really smooth when she’s walking and sitting. But when she sits, you can sort of see something sticking up in the skirt, like the contortionist didn’t have her head down quite far enough.
That’s being more than a little unfair. I’d say the majority of his tricks have a genuine unsuspecting audience. It would be easy to convincingly pull off this “pulling a woman in half” trick using only four plants; there’s no reason why rest of the audience can’t be bona fide bystanders. Likewise with the trick where he passes through a glass window, which was discussed on an earlier thread here: he needs only three or four plants (two to hold the paper over the window, one to stay inside the building and look amazed, and possibly one to raise and lower the window, unless this is done electromechanically or by Angel himself). The rest of the audience could well be genuine.
There have been previous threads on Criss Angel here where Dopers have reported watching him perform magic tricks in the street. I suppose those Dopers could have been shills employed by Angel to seek out SDMB threads about him and lie on his behalf, but it seems unlikely.
Sit, yes; lie down, no. Notice that when she lies down, she has to brace herself by gripping the sides of the bench, and Criss Angel has to hold her head and lower it for her. This is evidence that she’s really a short person perched on a bent-over contortionist; the top half needs to support when lying down or else she’d fall back and hit her head on the bench.
This could be the script for a MUCH more interesting show than Criss Angel Mindfreak. <cough> porn <cough>
Snopes doesn’t say anything about accomplices, they just say it wasn’t digital trickery. That it was completely staged goes without saying and they reiterate that at Snopes… “All the details of the performance — even actions and appearances that are seemingly innocuous or unimportant — have a purpose.”
Everyone there was in on the trick.
Magic works by using psychological tricks to make you believe something. It does this by manipulating your assumptions. He’s in a park, so you naturally assume that the people he meets are park users, not stooges. You see a woman lie down on a bench, then there is an edit to a different camera at a different angle, but since it appears that you are seeing a continuation of the action, you assume that is the case when really what happened is that the real woman was switched with the two women that were pulled apart.
It is actually a very simple illusion and editing is not considered digital trickery.
Never forget that the number one tool in the Magician’s tool kit is the lie. There is no reason to accept anything as it is presented. After all, if it wasn’t impossible, it wouldn’t be magic!
You can tell most of the people in his videos are bad actors. They act too surprised most of the time. Either way, he’s probably the best magician I’ve ever watched.
Why don’t the bystanders investigate the legs at the end? Are they too “freaked out”, or are they are not permitted to approach? At some point the person is going to have to straighten up and walk away, or do they not leave the bench until the park closes?
Because they’re not bystanders. They’re either in on the whole thing, or the “magician’s” publicist or whoever slipped them a couple bucks to do as they’re told.
You could do the exact same “stunt” with some basic film editing, too. Like all magic and especially the crap you only see on TV, it’s blatent lies that hope you’re not going to actually think about it.
I am actually a magician in real life and I can tell you that you’re all way, way off course; it’s a trick, yes, but none of you are even close. I know how it’s done, but I’m not telling.
[sub]Actually, I’m not a magician, and it’s pretty obvious that you are in fact quite close to the truth, but all that wa missing from this thread is the obligatory post like this one[/sub]
[QUOTE=Don Logan]
Why don’t the bystanders investigate the legs at the end?What makes you think that they didn’t? The clip is only three minutes long.At some point the person is going to have to straighten up and walk awayWhat makes you think that she (they) didn’t? Again, the clip is only three minutes long. The ending was omitted either because
[ol]
[li]Criss Angel revealed how the trick was done to the live audience, but did not want to reveal it to the television audience;[/li][li]Criss Angel did perform the re-attachment bit, but flubbed it;[/li][li]Criss Angel did perform the re-attachment bit, but decided the trick was more effective (spookier) if that part wasn’t shown on television; or[/li][li]the live audience were all plants, so filming the re-attachment was not necessary.[/li][/ol]
I don’t understand why people here keep insisting that the live audience consists entirely of plants. Haven’t you folks ever seen a street magician before? People really do perform impressive magic tricks in parks and on sidewalks in front of a live audience. Sure, there may be some plants for certain tricks, but there’s no reason why everyone watching has to be in on it.
Sorry about the bad coding. I’ll try again.
What makes you think that they didn’t? The clip is only three minutes long.
What makes you think that she (they) didn’t? Again, the clip is only three minutes long. The ending was omitted either because
[ol]
[li]Criss Angel revealed how the trick was done to the live audience, but did not want to reveal it to the television audience;[/li][li]Criss Angel did perform the re-attachment bit, but flubbed it;[/li][li]Criss Angel did perform the re-attachment bit, but decided the trick was more effective (spookier) if that part wasn’t shown on television; or[/li][li]the live audience were all plants, so filming the re-attachment was not necessary.[/li][/ol]
I don’t understand why people here keep insisting that the live audience consists entirely of plants. Haven’t you folks ever seen a street magician before? People really do perform impressive magic tricks in parks and on sidewalks in front of a live audience. Sure, there may be some plants for certain tricks, but there’s no reason why everyone watching has to be in on it.