I assumed there was a person hiding in the box, fiddling with the cards. But I wonder if there is any attempt to hide that person from Allison (didn’t appear to be). If not, is it just a given that she - or whomever - would not only keep it mum, but would also have the ability to not react upon sighting the hidden person?
mmm
As a kid, I went up onto stage to help a magician with an act. Many of the gizmos were clearly visible. He didn’t seem too concerned to try and hide it.
I assume that Allyson is getting to see all sorts of secrets from her position at the side of the stage.
Another fooling because they didn’t notice what happened last night. This is surprising because it was so obvious. Could be the long days of watching acts is wearing them down.
Everything behind the mirror was hidden under the blanket that had been covering it. He hangs the blanket over his shoulder when he tilts the mirror, then moves the stuff back behind the mirror when it’s upright again, before tossing the blanket on the floor. Can’t believe they missed it.
Not sure how the Yes/No movie card trick worked. He clearly had to fix up things because he got Frozen in the wrong pile. I’ll have to watch in slomo to see what else is going on there.
I’m confused about how P&T didn’t understand the first act with the mirror. It was well performed and entertaining, but it was so obvious that he took the cloth and items off the mirror, kept the stash of items hidden under the cloth, showed the back to be empty, and then replaced the items behind the mirror before disposing of the cloth. It was all a big move, not a quick sleight of hand with a card that could be missed. Plus the cloth might as well have been printed with “big unnecessary item that could hide a lot things and must be key to the trick.”
They missed that? Really? Or am I way off base and there was something else going on? I don’t see how.
They said there was one important piece that they missed - I just watched it and it must be a very quick move to reload all of this items from inside the cloth to behind the mirror (collapsible items in a magnetic bag that snaps onto the back?). I assume P&T got the obvious but also knew enough to know there was something extra that they didn’t get.
On the first viewing, I did not catch that he moved the stash when securing the mirror. I did fully expect that the cloth was concealing something, and was expecting him to somehow hang it back on the mirror (or some other convenient place). When he didn’t do that, but instead just walked over and dropped it on the floor, it threw me. I missed that his arm carrying the folded over cloth went behind the mirror for a moment as he was righting it. I imagine P&T missed that too.
How did the bald black guy do his trick? Was it a force or not? P & T think Teller had free choice.
They implied marked cards and a camera that could put the image of any card in the picture. Since the magician conceded that must be it.
Given that the deck wasn’t shuffled, all he would need to do is know where it was that Teller cut to and then count how many cards he put down, and he’d know the card that was on top. The markings probably just help him to know what was on top after the cut.
I assume he’s a programmer.
I watched a few times and his moves all look clean when he’s placing the cards down. Penn ends by saying something like, “Thanks for a slight/sleight card trick.” I don’t know that it was a code word, but I think it was, so I don’t think there was any advance research, no chemical color change effects, etc.
Where things look funny is during the reveal. He does a funny move with his left hand when he tosses the poker chip over his shoulder, and his move when he squared up one deck and not the other also seems a bit suspicious. I’m thinking that he’s somehow loading alternate cards under the top of the decks that he built during the act, then removes the original cards when he flips the decks over.
That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to be completely wrong. The possibilities in the realm of sleight of hand are beyond me.
He seemed to get the card for Frozen in the wrong pile, so I think he’s doing something at the time of the choice. I don’t know what, combining/splitting a pair of cards? He covers for it by counting a couple of the cards from the NO pile so Frozen is on top, still showing the name of the movie. He reveals the other NOs are correct, and some of the YESes are correct too, then combines the unrevealed YES and NO cards. I think the unrevealed YES cards are correct, by placing them over the unrevealed NO cards, then combining all the cards and turning them over then there’s no break in the YESes and NOs where Frozen is, but you can’t really see movies are on them.
I think that only covered up a mistake and there’s more to it, but I still don’t know what. Penn ends by saying the trick is ‘Out of this world’. Maybe that’s the name of the trick.
I wonder what would happen if instead of the current format they simply had one winner per show as “Best Trick”.
16 shows = 16 winners
4 more shows = top 4
Winner!!!
Impressively simple.
Trick decks are not my favorite kind of magic. I own a deck and it hardly feels like skill-based magic when I show it to people. Neat novelty things, but hardly a big skill.
Mike Bliss - Good presentation. Short act. The one girl on the left seemed like she was a natural at being comfortable and funny on stage.
Ekaterina - I think that over 50% of the female magicians who have come on to the show have now done some variant of “folded paper hidden in an inaccessible place”. I assume that they must have figured that they didn’t have the chops to win, so they’re just doing a trick that they like. Strange that they all seem to gravitate to the same sort of trick though.
Javi Benitez - Wow. Maybe not quite as mystical as Shin Lim, but definitely better. I don’t see anywhere for him to be picking up or dropping cards. He drops his hand below the edge of the table once in the act, but he’s already done a whole lot of nonsense by that point. I think that the cards are gimmicked in some way (possibly several ways), but I don’t really see any fishy moves, like to peel things apart and put them back together. No idea. Good presentation as well.
Ran Gafner - I think I know every single thing he did to make this trick happen. There’s an edit where they flip the view away from him right at a moment where I suspect that he performs a swap. Despite all that, I think that the trick had the potential to be a real marvel for most of the audience. Main issue is that it was about 10 minutes of setup for a 2 second jingle. For the amount of time that he took, the payoff was just too short. It seemed less like there was a grand reveal and more like the trick just suddenly cut off at some point. Overall, I’d say that he needs to figure out how to be a better presenter.
Pen & Teller - I saw this trick a month or two ago. The version they did for Jimmy Fallon was filmed better and the background music made it a bit better: Backstage Magic Trick: Penn & Teller Return! - YouTube I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised how little Penn’s dialogue and all the mime work change. Too many technical aspects to allow for improvisation, I guess.
Real life has taken over so I haven’t been as active watching them.
Mike Bliss: A classic of magic. One woman wasn’t into it the other was. Apparently they edited a watch steal out according to reddit. Actually it explains something that confused me because we he gave the woman on the left the cloth he grabbed her really weird, you can see the steal happen here. Also James Randi does a great version of this.
Ekaterina: a sloppy switch. Only thing I’m not sure is how she would ensure that the dream is there. Obviously some preloads, but how do you ensure that it isn’t something insane? Maybe the spray paint is to mask the sound of a printer?
Javi Benitez: when he said Spain I knew P&T would be fooled. Penn has said this repeatedly. I haven’t a single clue how he did this. Gimmicked cards somehow with sleight of hand?
Ran Gafner: force of the song. Also he gives the bells to certain people so this assigns the order. However the bells are chosen such that if you swap two of them, the song doesn’t change. Looking at the music for the anthem, the 1st and 5th notes are the same, 2nd and 4th are the same, and third is different. So it doesn’t matter what order the song is played in and he only allows her to swap 1 and 5, 2 and 4.
P&T: I think I linked this trick earlier in the thread. No real need to explain because it’s a classic in magic and you can just youtube the gimmick.
Here is Juan Tamariz doing the same trick that Javi did. I assume that Javi learnt it from Tamariz. I mean I know in principle how it is done, but god damn is amazingly good.
I was thinking that she had a couple dozen common children’s objects objects prepared. How and when would she have been able to fold up a print out?
This is one of the few tricks that had me agog. I too am assuming that it is gimmicked cards, but I did not catch any move that gave away how it was accomplished. While Shin Lim is good, you can see how he does things by watch closely in slow motion. Slo-mo was no help with Javi (although my recording was not the best and I could have missed something).
Thanks for that explanation. It makes the whole trick a bit more trivial.
I think it also exploits that most people don’t have perfect pitch. Since bells are given out in a different order, we forget that we’re hearing the same bell again.