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I'm thinking of recreating Criss Angel's walk on water illusion that he did. Obviously I dont have the budget he has so it wont be taking place at a hotel swimming pool. My friends family have a swimming pool in their house. I might do it there.. and if possible, I might get in touch with a local leisure centre and see if I can do it one day.

OBVIOUSLY I cant reveal the method how I'm going to do it as I'm pretty sure its the same way Criss Angel did it. The difference between the 2 is that if I can get mine sorted, it will actually look a lot more realistic than Criss Angels. Criss Angel made a couple of mistakes when he shot his performance and again, I'm not going to say what they are. These are not obvious mistakes either.. I've watched the video on repeat about 300 times

Trust me, if you watch his performance and look for mistakes, you wont find them unless you know what you are looking for.

A good tip that might help, without giving away any secrets.

Freeze it

Honestly though, good luck.

Have you got a link where i can see him walking on water.

LOL.. I never thought of that.. that might save me a lot of time!

I'm working it out on paper now, I've got my method on how to do it.. now I'm covering all angles.. working it out so that people can swim underneath and walk around me like criss angel did.. but also have someone walking a few feet behind me.. or at least trying. He or she will be trying to walk in the exact places I walked yet he or she will fall into the water as there will be nothing to walk on.

If I pull this off succesfully, I'm going to send a message to criss angel with a link to the video saying "THIS IS HOW ITS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE!"

remember to post the video here first

I've got nowhere else to post it.. I dont visit any other magic boards

Dont expect to see this in a few days.. I have no money and a big imagination. Although I'm off work all week next week so I should have time to plan it fully and prepare it

well walking on water, gotta see that. Has anyone seen people running across custard....im serious!!! It can be done. Obviously you would need alot of custard, like enough to fill a swimming but the science to it is that custard contains alot of starch (i think thats why its possible, need to look it up, but it is still on topic) and when its kept in movement and is kept in motion, for instance running across it, it should stay solid. So if thats the case, if you stop moving, it acts like quick sand, you sink. Kind of a 'sticky' (no pun intended, bad joke, ill see myself out after im finished.... ) situation trying to get out, because you will need to apply alot of force to get yourself out, its as if your stuck in cement.

So to all that find your self in a situation where you just happen to fall into a river of custard, ease yourself out slowly, and thank me when your out.

haha, I saw something on that daft science show similar to the custard effect ( it may have been custard i cant remember now lol ) where he did just that, then stopped to talk to the camera and sank in - obviously with all the movement trying to get out again the substance ( whatever it was ) would just keep going solid and holding him in it took ages to get out again

anyway, back to the thread - would love to see this lol ( yes thats really all I have to say in this long post )

In my quest to perform this amazing feat. I'm trying to prove two things.

1. You dont need a big budget to perform magic.
2. I can perform it better than Criss Angel and make it so that there are no mistakes left in the video

they probably haven't got the time or money to watch it frame by frame looking for mistakes and then reshoot if it necessary. Theres always going to be some mistakes as nothing is perfect

Again, I wont expose how he did it.. all I'm going to say is that polishing up the effect for TV isnt always a good thing.

Everyone knows how he did it anyway

Walking on water has so been done. Why don't you try something new - like walking on a lake of boiling lava or something - now that would be impressive. (Although it's a little harder to get hold of than a swimming pool)

Sorry to chuck a cat amongst the pigeons here, but I agree with Taneous. Walking on water really is a bit of an oldie in terms of trying to prove something.

And due to the nature of the two methods which I know it can be achieved by, doing it in an uncontrolled public situation may just be magician-suicide, as the methods are surely going to be exposed.

What I always dreamed would be a GREAT illusion is to have someone rise to the surface, floating on their back, and then rise ABOVE the water.

As water is generally clear (unless you paddle in the Thames a lot) you are removing any suspicion of levitation devices from below, as surely they'd be seen. I think the beauty of this type of illusion would far surpass the simple 'walking on water', which I am sure almost every illusionist will have tried at least once.

The only scale I could imagine this being impressive on is to do it on a boating lake, or other area, as an impromptu... wait until a crowd gathers around a sporting jetty, or somesuch, and proceed to walk on the water. Now that WOULD be nice.

I think most of us have experimented with objects of varying refractive indexes etc. to visualise this on a small scale.

I would LOVE to see your version of this. However, I'd suggest you concentrate less on the method, and try and think more about impact and the situation in which it's performed.

Stuart & Barry did a very poor job of theirs on their TV show... mainly because of how and where they did it (let alone the fact that if you watch carefully, they do actually tip the gaff somewhat).

The other thing you must consider with this is the 'so what?' aspect. Quite often with magic and illusion, you will see something which doesn't have a motive or goal. Especially when it is something which is obviously impossible.

To explain:
1. Everybody who's ever taken a swim, a bath or a paddle will KNOW that it is impossible to walk on water. So they will immediately be suspicious if you announce what you're going to do. Think about how you could build up to this as a surprise, rather than an expectation.

2. Think about the effect as a story. A story only works if it has a start, a middle, and a conclusion. If you present a story with just a middle and a conclusion, you leave out vital parts and plots which should have been given at the start.
Similarly, if you only present a start and a middle, your story is left as a cliffhanger, without a conclusion.
What I'm saying here is that if you simply just walk over water, you're just giving the middle of a story. People may think 'well, so what, he's obviously just rigged it so he can walk on water. No real excitement, it's just an illusion'.

3. Think about your desired reaction from your audience. Criss doesn't need to worry about this, for the obvious reasons, as he's already Mr Limelight and I imagine that even if he simply sneezed he'd have crowds of people applauding across the world... 'Wow! Criss Angel SNEEZED! I saw it with my own eyes!'.

Unfortunately, you don't have this pre-credibility. If you're going to do it, you need to have a reason and a goal. Do you want people to be 'WOW! That was amazing, he walked on water!" or do you want magicians to say 'This guy is very clever, he's walked on water using a new method!', or is it simply a case of personal achievement?

I think motive for a stunt such as this is an important part of the whole. If you're out for personal achievement, that's great. But if you're just out to impress the magic community you need to think hard and research how this has been done in the past.

Of course—if you are wanting to just entertain a crowd, then power to you! But please consider the point of making it entertaining, and trying to give it a meaning.

What you're considering is very brave, and as mentioned, if you are wanting to wow the magic community then you really are going to have to pull something big out of the bag. Remember: technical skill isn't the be-all and end-all... quite often it's the actual final product which counts!

Good luck!

I agree 100% the Stuart and Barry version was awful, the gaff was really visible (if you know what you are looking for ).