How do they do this magic trick

[Hathe]

And what great memories those are. Honey, I forgot to wipe!

[simeon]

Originally Posted by Eomer

He is legend.

I believe Will Smith would have to disagree.

[Eomer]

I am far too lazy to put together a FPOB post. So just pretend there's one here.

[Dabamf]

Originally Posted by simeon

I believe Will Smith would have to disagree.

His name is Willenium

[Radahr Manasponge]

Copperfield did a show last year at the Kravis center here in West Palm beach...you might have heard it referenced in the news...he was walking downtown with a couple of his assistants after the show and got mugged. The muggers got all the assistants stuff, but couldn't find his. They gave up looking after a while and left in a stolen car. He calmly removed one of his two or three cell phones, called the cops with the descriptions and plate number, and within the hour they caught 'em.

Anyhow, at the show, my wife and I paid VERY close attention. I like to think I'm fairly observant, but short of staging the entire audience (or damn close to it) I simply don't see how he did a bunch of the illusions. but then again, he kinda does this shit for a living, and spend an absolutely silly amount of time and money perfecting his show.

If you've never seen him live, I'd strongly recommend doing it once at some point. It was a hell of a good time, and even as a raging skeptic, he had me wow'ed a couple of times. Good stuff!

[Dabamf]

Magic has no appeal to me whatsoever. It's something about the fact that it is represented as something (magic) when it often is something insanely simple. Smart & clever, but simple. (Obviously they don't really claim to be doing magic.) I've been to a Copperfield show before. I don't get awed, I just find it irritating. Part of it is the misrepresentation, but part of it is also the "look how awesome I am" attitude they present. It's really lame.

I loved that parody posted because it captures the attitude so well. You're not some mystical god, you are a performer, nothing more.

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Radahr Manasponge

Copperfield did a show last year at the Kravis center here in West Palm beach...you might have heard it referenced in the news...he was walking downtown with a couple of his assistants after the show and got mugged. The muggers got all the assistants stuff, but couldn't find his. They gave up looking after a while and left in a stolen car. He calmly removed one of his two or three cell phones, called the cops with the descriptions and plate number, and within the hour they caught 'em.

Anyhow, at the show, my wife and I paid VERY close attention. I like to think I'm fairly observant, but short of staging the entire audience (or damn close to it) I simply don't see how he did a bunch of the illusions. but then again, he kinda does this shit for a living, and spend an absolutely silly amount of time and money perfecting his show.

If you've never seen him live, I'd strongly recommend doing it once at some point. It was a hell of a good time, and even as a raging skeptic, he had me wow'ed a couple of times. Good stuff!

Yep! I saw him live a while back too. He's fantastic. He did the trick I am talking about in here, and he would spray paint the answers down, it was terrific. He had made a car appear on stage in seconds, right above peoples heads, and he did one of those tricks where he disappears and then reappears across the auditorium, up in the audience. He reappeared right by us, and we sure as hell didn't see any doors opening or any weird trickery. The auditorium is an old cement piece of shit we were in too. Definitely very clever.

[Radahr Manasponge]

Originally Posted by Dabamf

Magic has no appeal to me whatsoever. It's something about the fact that it is represented as something (magic) when it often is something insanely simple. Smart & clever, but simple. (Obviously they don't really claim to be doing magic.) I've been to a Copperfield show before. I don't get awed, I just find it irritating. Part of it is the misrepresentation, but part of it is also the "look how awesome I am" attitude they present. It's really lame.

I loved that parody posted because it captures the attitude so well. You're not some mystical god, you are a performer, nothing more.

That's kind of the point though. He's a hell of a performer. Some of his stuff is laughably easy to see through. Some isn't. A couple tricks just make you scratch your head, doing the whole "Hrmm, I wonder how the hell he did dat"...

And some is just ... holy shit.

He 'appeared' with 15 people from the audience on the third tier balcony from the stage in less than 10 seconds. The fastest Olympic sprinter you ever met couldn't physically run that far in that amount of time, to say anything of the old farts he had with him. Even if they were 'faking' being old, i know they didn't get to install some kind of mechanical-pneumatic turbo elevator lift under the stage and up into the wall...


It's about the show. Whether you believe he's "magic" or not (update: I don't), he puts on a good show, with some pretty good illusions.

[aychamo_aycono]

I'm surprised the whole magic community or whatever is so tight lipped that all of these tricks aren't so easily exposed. Syntax ftl.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by aychamo_aycono

I'm surprised the whole magic community or whatever is so tight lipped that all of these tricks aren't so easily exposed. Syntax ftl.

"They're illusions, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money...or cocaine."

-- GOB Bluth

[Dabamf]

Originally Posted by aychamo_aycono

I'm surprised the whole magic community or whatever is so tight lipped that all of these tricks aren't so easily exposed. Syntax ftl.

I'm surprised by this too. Seems like secrets would be leaked much more often.

[AngryGerbil]

Originally Posted by Dabamf

I'm surprised by this too. Seems like secrets would be leaked much more often.

Because THAT trick, only works once.

$$

[Windemere11]

Originally Posted by Radahr Manasponge

That's kind of the point though. He's a hell of a performer. Some of his stuff is laughably easy to see through. Some isn't. A couple tricks just make you scratch your head, doing the whole "Hrmm, I wonder how the hell he did dat"...

And some is just ... holy shit.

He 'appeared' with 15 people from the audience on the third tier balcony from the stage in less than 10 seconds. The fastest Olympic sprinter you ever met couldn't physically run that far in that amount of time, to say anything of the old farts he had with him. Even if they were 'faking' being old, i know they didn't get to install some kind of mechanical-pneumatic turbo elevator lift under the stage and up into the wall...


It's about the show. Whether you believe he's "magic" or not (update: I don't), he puts on a good show, with some pretty good illusions.

L2ThePrestige

[Ronne]

Any ideas on this bullshit? Breaks my brain for sure.

[Horse]

There are more than 4 cards there, they're placed on top of each other to look like one card. You can youtube the explanations of it.

The last pass you have to do a drop of the card on top of another card perfectly. The way you achieve that is with a slight bend of the cards. This guy does it well but when you see amateurs doing it they fidgit with the cards too much and treat them too carefully, so you get the hint that they're maintaining a stick or doing lifts/drops.

He moves quickly so you just assume someone can't accurately drop a card on top of another one to the point that it doesn't look like there are 2 cards. That's the premise of the trick.

The other cue of someone doing this trick poorly is when they put their hand down to "fake drop" the card, they also move it to the side (separating the 2 stuck cards).

Just take the assumptions and the prep for granted and you'll figure out any illusion.

Assumption: he has a 52 card deck so it must only be 4 aces.

Someone doing it poorly:
YouTube - Invisible Palm Card Trick

Hax:
YouTube - The Invisible Palm Tutorial



Paypal me money and I'll tell you how copperfield does all of his illusions, even the infamous "appeared across the auditorium impossibly fast."