I was watching one of those ‘The Masked Magician’ reveal shows once, where they first do a trick, then they repeat it, showing how it was done.
One of the tricks involved the use of around a dozen people from the audience (they held up a large curtain that hid a truck or something). During the first performance, I had no freaking clue how it was done. I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d seen in some time. I couldn’t wait to see how it was accomplished.
Well, you guessed it. All of the audience members were ringers. It hadn’t even occurred to me that that was the secret to the trick. And this was a big-budget illusion, performed by a pro.
I’m not saying I am 100% certain ringers are involved; I’m just saying that’s the direction I am leaning.
mmm
It’s easy. These two guys have simply harnessed the power of Satan himself, the Dark Lord of Hades, and are channeling that voodoo through those unholy playing cards.
I’m guessing the “ringer” is the person picking the number. I’m thinking there is some kind of formula used where cards A-K represent 1-13 and then the suits each have a value. Put the two numbers in the formula and it gives you a number between 1 & 52.
He could have easily passed this formula to Parkinson before the show since he’s the host and in the second example he directly picked the lady who was supplying the number.
I tried to figure out the formula where Qhearts=8 and 4hearts=23 but couldn’t come up with it.
I think if Berglas used the means in this video* to pick audience members we’d put to rest the notion of ringers in the audience.
[sub]* For those who do not want to watch it is from Penn & Teller’s show “Fool Us”. The magician throws a beach ball into the audience and has one pick a range of cards, throw the ball randomly in the audience and the next picks a number/face card, throw the ball and that person picks a suit.[/sub]
Here’s a thread I found on a website specifically for magicians. It includes various reports of the illusion being performed for an audience of 1, with the 1 already being a trained magician. That seems to rule out ringers, unless the entire thing is some crazy hoax.
David Blaine and Criss Angel use ringers all the friggin’ time, and some of David Copperfield’s televised tricks had every single person present (several dozen of them) ringers. Personally, I think it’s cheating* to have a significant fraction of the live audience be ringers, but there’s nothing at all wrong with having one ringer out of an audience of dozens, hundreds, or thousands.
I’ll bet you that if we had video of that performance, it would turn out to be a completely different trick that was done.
*And yes, there is such a thing as cheating at a magic trick, else we’d be forced to conclude that Ian McKellan and Michael Gambon are great magicians.
That was the impression I got from that linked thread, it’s not that it’s one single trick but a variety of tricks with a similar outcome. A magic show, like any other show is a performance - the end result is to impress the audience, nothing else. Whilst there is both an art and a craft to it, just as there is with making a film, for example, what happens beneath the surface is for the most part irrelevant to the outcome. I guess I somewhat disagree with you on the “cheating” thing as well - if all the audience are ringers, there’s no performance, and hence no magic. In the Copperfield tricks you mention, the audience are specifically the TV audience, not the live crowd.
Well, yes, but then, it’s also the TV (or movie theater) audience who are the audience for Gandalf’s or Dumbledore’s magic, too. What’s the difference between what Michael Gambon is doing on screen and what David Copperfield is doing on screen?
Mini-Hijack: Thanks to reading this thread, I’ve found a great board site for magicians called Genii which I became a member of last night and wanted to say thanks.
I love magic, and, although not as accomplished as most of you, I used to do very simple tricks (magic coloring book, magic bag with flower boxes) for my pediatric patients when I worked to help them pass the time or allay their fears.
I would like to continue doing some of those simple tricks as therapy and for family gatherings and was wondering if, seeing the above tricks, y’all might recommend some which are similar?
I am looking at the Houdini Magic Spirit Lights which carry 1 star on the box, but don’t know if I can handle this effect, so I’d like your advice, please?
Not only that one, but any you might think would be suitable for me.
Also, I have the quarter in the Coke can DVD (Chriss Angel) I’d like to send someone as a gift, if you’ll pm me.
Watch the video closely during the second trick. They are counting the cards and when they get to 20, the magician holds his hand out to slow down the dealer. Then he slowly counts…21…22 and holds his hand up and says, “Wait! This…is…the…23…card.” As the magician is saying this, watch the dealer. He quickly brings the deck up to his waist line and moves his left hand quickly towards his body and back again to the deck. The dealer is a ringer.
I’m not sure who the dealer was in the first clip. Is he a celebrity? The camera doesn’t show as much
The thing is, if it’s a ringer, then this isn’t the “trick that only two people in the world know how to do.” It’s “the trick that everyone on the planet knows how to do,” because doing this with a ringer is fucking easy. I could do it with a ringer, and I have trouble tying my shoelaces.
Now, it’s possible that the whole, “only two people know it,” thing is bullshit, just pure hucksterism, and nothing more. But like I said upthread, if you Google “Berglas Effect,” there seem to be quite a few other magicians who are stumped by this one. Either they’re all too dumb to think of using a ringer on their own, they’re all too naive to question the claims that no ringers were used, or this trick has been exhibited under circumstances that ruled out the use of a ringer. Or, I suppose, they could all be in on it together. But the most plausible scenario is that someone has figured out a very, very cleaver trick that almost no one else has been able to puzzle out.
In the first clip, the celebs are Martine MCutcheon (well known actress from Eastenders, appeared in Love Actually) and Alistair McGowan (very successful impressionist and comedian, had his own comedy show). And the number is chosen by legendary talk show host Michael Parkinson (think Johnny Carson in terms of reputation, then double it - he’s an uncontested British national treasure).
The likelihood of any of them being a stooge is infinitesimally low.
An obvious piece of misdirection, so that the audience fleetingly think “Ah, I see how he’s doing this…” while the actual trick is something else entirely. C’mon, this isn’t rocket science.
The thing is that magicians all the time use “ringers” specifically because people refuse to believe it possibly could be.
If it isn’t a ringer, then you ought to be able to find a clip of him proving that. IT would be a really, really crappy magician that would let you believe that you actually know how the trick is done. He would go out of his way to make sure you knew he wasn’t using ringers.
And, no, the fact that he does it for a bunch of people means pretty much nothing. As Chronos says, there is more than one way to do these types of tricks. Heck, the first Google result links to that Genii forum where they point out that there are several variations of the trick developed by others.
Ever since I’ve seen Chris Angel and Darren Brown, I’ve learned that magicians will alter their tricks for TV, taking advantage of the medium. They will lie as much as possible: No actors in Darren Brown, or complete reshoots for Chris Angel.
We do not believe that using ringers is not possible, we believe that using ringers makes him a shit magician. It’s like performing the sawn woman trick using CGI.
Ultimately, not a great deal - they are all performers attempting to entertain. Knowing that the magic is a trick no more takes the entertainment away than knowing that Middle-Earth doesn’t really exist.
I have reasonable personal evidence to suspect Derren (not Darren) Brown does use stooges occasionally, but I’m not going to go into details.
However in the trick with the celebs, and the descriptions from the Genii thread (including someone now anonymized but called “Ian” which makes me wonder if it’s our own ianzin) make it sound like it’s not that kind of trick. Particularly, they are saying it can be done with someone else’s deck of cards.
The one that comes immediately to mind is David Blaine’s levitation.
In real life he went around performing the Balducci levitation (google it) and filmed spectators reactions to it. Well, at least the reactions of the people who fell for it.
However, when they edited it for TV instead of showing us exactly what the spectators saw, the illusion of levitating an inch or so off the ground, they showed a shot of him from the knees down levitating a good foot or so into the air.
