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Does anyone own the healed and sealed coke can manuscript, and if so how good is it. Is it obvious how its done. It looked amazing on Blaines Frozen in time special.
Also while we're on the subject of David Blaine, what everyones problem with him. Maybe his tricks aren't the most complicated in the world, and maybe you can buy his tricks in any good magic shop, but its the way he performs the tricks that make him such an amazing performer, and in my opinion performance is 80% of the trick.
So he has a high opinion of himself, but don't all magicians. They have to have an ego to do what they do. David Blaine has made magic popular again, and I think we should thank him for that.

Despite my little rant I personally prefer Paul Xenon but I still think Blaine's and excellent performer.

i gree... i like david blaines style... i think the big thing is that he uses camera work for certain effects and this REALLY gets up purists noses...(waiting on a backlash from seige... hehe)

I know what you mean. I don't know whether I can say how he did his levitation so I won't but, I'm guessing you know anyway. It was really dissapointing to see him resort to camera trickery. Do you think when he performed in the street he ever got caught out (this footage would have obviously been destroyed by 'The Church of Blaine').
I still like him though and although I was sceptical I really enjoyed his book.

No backlash.

Just my humble opinion (as usual).

Blaine is a very accomplished magician. But he's taken things a bit too seriously. If he stuck to magic without trying to go for the 'Messiah' aspect, he'd get a lot more respect from magicians.

The criticisms are that he's devaluated magic - by taking in-your-face street magic, bringing it to TV and finding it neccessary to enhance it with camera trickery.

I'm sure that you realise that the healed and sealed is a set-up... as is the levitation, etc. etc. A lot of what he does relies on the TV. He performs to celebs... but I'd bet that his closeup stuff is better than his 'built for TV' street stuff. But, as we're not celebs, we'll never know.

As for Zenon, he's a master of his art.

His routes are more deeply set in genuine street-swindling and trickery. His more cheeky 'practical joke' style is far less theatrical than Blaine, and his TV appearances even show his mistakes.

He's more genuine, appealing and original.

When Blaine levitated - people thought he was God. It's become his trademark. Sadly.

But he HAS spawned a new breed of 'Blaine-a-likes', which is good for the spirit of magic. But what these Blaine-ettes should be doing is looking toward Zenon for inspiration - as he's far more dynamic and creative.

As for wisdom on Healed and Sealed - use the Search facility on this forum. It's been extensively covered.

yes he was caught out many times.... some of his effects "think of a number between 1 and 50" for example only work maybe 60% of the time so id guess he was caught out a lot... same with "think of a card".. same again.. certain people will answer in a certain way but not all of them.. so you only see the ones who answered correctly

Blaine is a great magician but i don't like his stuff when he claims to be invincible like staying in an ice cube for weeks (whats the point??!!)

However the effects he has done have and will always be admired e.g The Raven!!

Ben

The point of Blaines stunts is simple - people have always been fascinated by feats of human endurance, what better way to enhance or create his image, style and fame therefor getting more publicity and selling more copies of his book and vids this in turn leads to the all important point - making even more $$$

And talking of making $$$ - or not - I see that David's Mysterious Stranger Book is on sale again in the cheapo bookstores in Birmingham. I bought my copy in January for £9.95 instead of the full cover price. Now it's down to £5.99!

As a totally pointless and stupid comparison, Melanie B's autobiography is reduced to £12.99 whilst Gerri Haliwell's is down to £2.99.

and their both still horribly overpriced

I forgot to answer your question If you already know how the effect is done then I wouldnt buy the manuscript, it does give you a few routines but you may aswell come up with your own. The effect is done the same way each time, no matter what the routine.

I think the problem with david blane is that he has very few tv specials and In a special he only shows about 4 not to good tricks and if you look carefully you sometimes see things youre nit ment to see
Ben

Yup. I agree with everyone. Anyway , I think everyone kind of trailed off the original question though. Healed and Sealed: No , it is not obvious and it looks incredible and a very visual piece of magic. If I were you , I'd get it.

Nice to hear from you folks - as you've probably gathered by now, heading off in completely different directions is a sort of trade mark of this forum - probably due to our only having a short attention span or something! You'll find several previous postings regarding H&S but I think the general assessment is that it's a straightforward routine to do - as long as you pick the right moment - and the effect is quite stunning. Although David Blain has rightly received some criticism (oooh look, I'm really levitating 3 feet in the air, honest!) on this forum, he's at least got people talking about magic and the effects he's performed.

Indeed it is true - Blaine has had helped bring magic to the masses.

There's no denying that he's a good businessman, and an accomplished magician. He's a true entertainer - but not everyone's cup o'tea.

The Healed and Sealed effect performed by Blaine is pretty easy to do - and it really does work. Although, like I mentioned earlier, it is 'dressed up' slightly for TV - and using the effect practically in the real world does take an opportune set of circumstances... you can't just walk up to someone in a park and fill their can back up...

Saying that, I have to agree - if it weren't for Blaine, hardly anyone would know about Anders Moden, the Raven, Bite-out coins etc.

Things have to change in order to progress... and Blaine changed the public's perception of Magic, bringing it forward from the old Paul Daniels days... (which weren't so bad!!!)

Healed and sealed: bottom line... if you've seen the routine and enjoy it, and you want to perform it, buy the effect. It takes some work to suss out how to get it consistently right, but it works.

And what could be better than that???