talkmagic.co.uk

I'm new to the forum, so I hope this post is not unacceptable.

I caught an episode of "Mindfreak" on TIVO in which Criss Angel had set himself on fire to become a "human candle" for his mother's birthday. This was done in downtown Las Vegas in front of a crowd that seemed to surround the area in which the stunt was performed.

There is no doubt that he was on fire. However, at the end of the stunt he walks toward two pieces of plywood that are laid on the ground. He falls, face-first, onto the wood and then the assistants douse him with fire extinguishers to put him out. When the fumes from the extinguishers clear, it appears that Angel has disappeared, since he is not on the wood but instead there is an empty set of his clothing. Then one of the assistants reveals himself to be Angel by pulling off the hood of his gear, and the crowd begins to cheer.

Here's the camera manipulation:

I studied the ending sequence frame-by-frame. After he falls forward and the extinguisher spray fills the frame entirely, completely obscuring any view of anything at all except a huge mist of white, there is a cut and edit. This can be determined by checking the area the camera encompasses before the obscured frame and after it.

If you check carefully, there is a swirl pattern on the street where Angel performs this gag. The obscuring of the frame with extinguisher gases lasts 3 frames (1/10th of one second). Yet before the image is obscured, the camera view encompasses a slightly DIFFERENT area than after the gases clear. The camera shot AFTER the mist clears appears to be "zoomed" just a little tighter than the camera shot before the mist. You can determine this by looking at where the swirl image on the ground is cut off on the right edge of the camera frame BEFORE the mist and AFTER the mist. It does not match.

The camera operator, if there was one actually manning the camera, would have had to zoom the camera and return it to full, steady, unmoving position in exactly 1/10th of one second.

The final nail in the coffin is that there is a spectator who is visible in the right of the frame, standing behind the barrier immediately adjacent to what seems to be a sign posted on the barrier itself. Once the mist clears, just 1/10th of a second later, the sign is still visible on the barrier, but the easily-identified spectator is no longer there. Obviously this spectator either: ran off and away from the camera's view in 1/10th of a second, OR the shot was not continuous at all and was simply cut together AFTER the gag in order to create the magical part of the illusion.

I'll guess it was the latter.

I wasn't at the taping, but here's the sequence of events as I suspect they actually took place:

The crowd was gathered as expected for the gag. In preparation for the event, the emcee announced to the spectators that before Criss Angel himself arrived for the stunt his team would show them how the event would unfold. They talked the crowd through it, and demonstrated how they would extinguish the flames by laying out an empty set of clothing on the plywood. Then they doused that empty clothing with the extinguishers as a "demonstration". Once the demonstration was completed, Angel (who was posing as an assistant) revealed himself, leading the crowd to quite naturally and expectedly cheer for his FIRST APPEARANCE at the event rather than his DISAPPEARANCE at the end of the stunt.

Certainly the crowd had been primed by his people and worked up and eagerly anticipated his arrival.

Then in post they simply cut the first footage onto the end of the actual fire stunt, which would have ACTUALLY ended with him simply being extinguished. Yes, being set on fire and walking around for 45 seconds is a dangerous stunt, but it is not magic.

Further evidence to support my theory is that despite interviewing a number of spectators after the gag who talked about how incredible the stunt was, none of them mentioned the most incredible part of the trick: the switcheroo at the end.

and your point is.

magicdiscoman wrote:and your point is?

I'm sorry, I thought the point was obvious: that Angel has again used camera/tape manipulation over illusionary skill. The effect presented to the home viewer was not the effect witnessed by the live audience.

I feel that Angel and Blaine's reliance on camera manipulation and editing to accomplish their illusions tarnishes and devalues illusionists who use skill and practice to accomplish their own.

I feel that Angel and Blaine's reliance on camera manipulation and editing to accomplish their illusions tarnishes and devalues illusionists who use skill and practice to accomplish their own.

i agree but its the tv bosses that give them exposure rather than giving accomplised magicians a chance but i fail to see how your exposure of a trick however it was done is promoting magic in a good light.
all you have succeeded in doing is give ideas to the exposure geeks who already make our lives arkward.

faxinator wrote:I'm sorry, I thought the point was obvious: that Angel has again used camera/tape manipulation over illusionary skill. The effect presented to the home viewer was not the effect witnessed by the live audience.

So what? It's the effect that counts, not the cause.

Well said guys.

So what? It's the effect that counts, not the cause.

Agreed, but just to be Devil's Advocate...

Surely, the more magicians use camera trickery to achieve the 'effect', the more sceptical the audience will become. There could come a point at which the cleverest, most perfectly executed illusion would be written off as a simple camera trick by a sceptical audience. How unfair would that be?

As I say... just to be Devil's Advodate... this is not necessarily the view of the cowardly author who would much rather sit on the fence and not get flamed etc etc...

Let's go back in time a bit. Although i wasn't there at the time i know that David Nixon used editing to great effect. He even invented a name for it (anyone remember the name). So it is not all bad

It was people like Doug Henning who started the revolt against such practises. He and others belived that magic should not include such elements. However it is down to personal taste.

Am I to assume that all these people who detest "camera tricks" as they call them have never used a stooge, or a gimmick before for a trick?

Surely it's the same principle... using something other than "pure skill" to acchieve an effect

That's it....

First and foremost, faxinator - you are DEAD WRONG about this effect. It has been done by others, in nearly the same style. Neither of those times had a camera edit, either. Copperfield has done "instant vanish/appearance" effects in the past, an no one ever accused him of using a camera edit.

You make a complete guess as to how it worked - admitting you weren't there. I wasn't alive when President Kennedy was killed, but I know there was a shooter sitting in the sewer with a rifle. Do you have any idea how stupid this sounds?

Watch a video frame for frame - that's cool - but don't just throw guesses out and assume you know how the situation went down. You don't know what the situation was with the audience, so don't bother spewing your bogus c*** (not the best) about how you THINK it happened. And above all else, just because you claim to see a camera cut, doesn't mean there was one.

Ask yourself - if he was just going to use a camera cut and stooges - why even bother having the fire extinguishers involved? Why would he have to create misdirection and obfuscate the audiences view if they were already in on the effect, and he was just going to do the reappearance in post-production.

I have my reasons for thinking why you haven't thought of these things, but I'll keep those to myself for now.

I wasn't going to say this, but i will! just to back up what has been said above. It is NOT a camera trick, how can i be so sure? simple, because i know how it works. It is not a new method by any means. I know a few people who work in illusions so i do know what i am talking about.

I appreciate all the replies on the topic, it is an interesting one for debate. I believe the use of camera manipulation cheapens the hard work of other illusionists who achieve startling effects through skill and hard work.

There is clearly NO ambiguity in this case, the tape was edited. Just like Angel's park bench split woman effect, an analysis of the tape shows a clear cut edit. The frame-by-frame analysis does not lie, unless the vanishing of a spectator in 1/10th of one second was an intended part of the illusion.

Use of such methods essentially makes Barbara Eden and Elizabeth Montgomery as accomplished illusionists as Criss Angel.

Angel could have easily just left this simply a daring fire stunt gag, instead he opted to employ editing and camera trickery to add a "magic" element to the performance that was neither necessary nor honest.

And I agree with the point above, it is the television producers who promote such material, apparently unconcerned about the purity of magical illusion.

One wonders if the use of such methods will one day render regular illusionists who do not employ such means too unspectacular to be accepted as skilled professionals by the general public.

Demitri wrote:Ask yourself - if he was just going to use a camera cut and stooges - why even bother having the fire extinguishers involved? Why would he have to create misdirection and obfuscate the audiences view if they were already in on the effect, and he was just going to do the reappearance in post-production.

I have my reasons for thinking why you haven't thought of these things, but I'll keep those to myself for now.

No thought was necessary, the answer is quite obvious. No stooges or shills were involved. The use of the extinguishers was not to obfuscate the view of the live audience, it was to hide the camera edit for the home viewer. The positioning of the camera ensured that would be the case.

As I had said, the tape does not lie. It only takes a moment for you to analyze it for yourself, and the camera edit becomes quite clear and quite undeniable. Take a close look at the tape.

EckoZero wrote:Am I to assume that all these people who detest "camera tricks" as they call them have never used a stooge, or a gimmick before for a trick?

In 28 years of professional performance I have never used a stooge to achieve an effect. I have, almost constantly, used gimmicks. I would feel simply naked performing without my TT.

Yorkshire Pudding wrote:Surely, the more magicians use camera trickery to achieve the 'effect', the more sceptical the audience will become. There could come a point at which the cleverest, most perfectly executed illusion would be written off as a simple camera trick by a sceptical audience. How unfair would that be?

Indeed, very astute of you. Why even apprentice in magic if one can simply resort to camera trickery in order to become a skilled illusionist?