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As much as i love Derren Brown you cant deny he uses the camera to his advantage too. Its part of being a magician isnt it? Fooling the audience, both in front of him and at home.

I have the Mystifier DVD, and you can see where bits are cut in - especially in the levitation section - but i dont think any of his audience were stooges. Just my opinion.

In fact on the Mystifier DVD extras sectiony bit, you can see him use the Simple Switch in a trick. It impressed the specs but the fiddly bits didnt MAKE the trick, it was all a simple DL.

I'm entering the third day without food or sleep, so this may not be that coherent.

Blaine uses camera tricks and stooges. This is well documented, and he and Kalush even admitted this in an interview back in the late 90's.

One of the supposedly inviolate rules of TV magic is that no camera tricks are used. More recently this has been peed on my many magicians, notably Copperfield, Blaine and Angel. I know that many of the old school magicians, who paved the way for magic on TV, are not pleased.

There are many magicians who are entertaining the public legitimately, and as one of them I feel I have a right to disagree with what Blaine et al have done for magic. Jurassic Park entertained the public, but noone thought the dinosaurs were real.

Blaine is a showman, with a very good team behind him.

Take care, Ian

Do you object to stage workers using pre-show? Or close up workers using gimmicks?

There are no rules in magic. None. We are paid to deceive people in an entertaining way, that's what we do! It's ridiculous to think that there are ANY limitations to that.

That's simply not the case. Look into Mark Wilson's early career when he pioneered magic on TV.

Back in the late 50s/early 60s magic was a new thing on TV, and there was a large amount of resistance from the station owners who were concerned that the viewers would not take the show seriously, and that they would attribute everything to 'camera tricks'. Wilson went out of his way to fight this, and made sure that there were no fake shots on his shows (and it's arguable that without Wilson there would be no magic on TV now).

Fast forward to the 70's/80's and Paul Daniels is on UK TV. He, too, took the stance that there would be no camera tricks. In an interview many years ago he told of a time when a coin trick was edited, and the 'move' was taken out (by the editor who knew no better). After that, Paul always sat in on the editing to make sure that it never happened again.

Since those early days there has been the unwritten rule that TV should not use camera trickery - ask anyone who has been involved in producing magic for TV (better yet - read Mark Wilson's columns in Genii going back a few years).

There is a world of difference between using a gimmick in a live performance and cutting eight minutes from a routine to change the effect in a TV show, or using preshow work and performing for stooges who can see exactly how the effect is produced. If you cannot, or will not see that, then I see no point in discussing further.

Take care, Ian

I have to say I disagree, and am disappointed that you seem so reticent to hear my counter argument.

The very thing that defines magic is that you are presenting yourself as having some sort of ability or power (often one which does the impossible) which you do not. Why is it ok to lie about your ability to bend metal or transport object, but not ok to have the camera cut to a spectator whilst you bend a fork or switch two objects?

David Berglas, arguably one of the greatest magicians of all time, who had a huge career on television would often do tricks involving pre show, or black art, or other methods the camera never saw. Also, if you take his Piccadily Circus stunt as an example (where on command he caused the whole of Piccadily Circus to come to a standstill), the entire effect hinged on camera work.

One must remember that magic on TV is more than just watching a film of someone performing magic for a spectator, the magician is also performing the trick for the audience at home - and in fact, a truly great TV magician will understand that the trick played on the spectator who is present and the trick played "on the audience" can be two different things. If you would like to see examples of this kind of work, watch *anything* that Derren Brown has produced for television.

Magicians and mentalists have written a lot about the concept of Dual Reality in creating strong effects in magic, and that's what TV magic achieves - the dual realities of the physical spectator and the audience at home.

If you cannot, or will not see concede that an opinion other than yours may be correct, then I see no point in discussing it further.

I agree wholw heartedly with serendipity....an arguement has two sides.
Criss angel is ridiculous on TV, people are actors, and that is bad! But using the edit room to create a dual reality is using the medium (tv) to it's full potental is a must if you want to create the best possible show. Seeing great sleight of hand is the best thing ever LIVE, but on TV it kind of gets lost. The potenial is massive.....so i say hse it. I repeat, stooges and whole audiences of actors id silly as no one at the filming sees any magic and there is no skill at all in that. Dual reality is the way forward.

There are always differing points of view and each must be equally weighted in a proper discussion. The intention isn't to convince others that one and only one argument is right, just to put forward a strong and honestly held opinion, with supporting facts if appropriate. On that basis, there's every reason to continue this thread but if you're all done, we can lock it.

I'm not reticent, but I've seen this arguement so many times over the years I can't really be bothered to hack through it again. Plus, I've not slept for three days. Also, I generally avoid net debates with anonymous posters.

TV magic is about credibility. Once camera tricks are used, there is no credibility for anyone, even those who strive to avoid such devices.

You are welcome to your opinion.

Take care, Ian

If it relies on camera trickery then surely it comes under the heading of special effects rather than magic - in the sense of legerdemain, conjuring type magic? Sadly the word 'magic' is badly misused - I see there are TV adverts currently referring to 'Everyone loves the magic of DVDs' and they're advertising a Cliff Richard collection!

That depends how you define a camera trick. Lots of editors will cut away from a magicians hands and show a reaction or a bit of the crowd when a sleight is being executed. This is to get round the fact that you can't misdirect a camera like you can a spectator.

Performing an effect close up is very different to performing essentially the same trick on stage - not only in the way you present and perform the trick, but in the mechanics of it as well, as you have a couple of hundred pairs of eyes watching you from all sorts of new angles you hadn't thought of before. In my opinion it is only natural to adapt a trick to the medium it is performed in, and to use any available tools to do that.

I repeat my earlier point: There should be no rules in magic. If I execute the top change, but the audience still truly believes that I'm holding their card, that's where the magic happens. Similarly, if I were on tv and used editing to make a trick appear differently to the audience at home, as long as they truly believe that they're seeing everything that's going on, that's still magical for them.

And Cliff Richard is *clearly* the world's greatest magician. How else would he keep getting number ones?

the problem as I see it, with camera trickery, is that when the audience then sees a magician in the flesh (don't bingo me) levitate a few inches off the ground it is nowhere near as impressive as when they saw them fly from one side of their TV to the other. They become somewhat de-sensitized.