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Levitation

I'm not sure Chris Angel uses editing. Back in the day professional magicians took great pride in not using TV tricks in their shows. The idea was that anything they could do on TV would also work on stage.

I think usually wires are used.
 
I haven't seen the Chris Angel levitation. Is there some guarantee that there is no editing?
 
NoahFence said:
Some of the tricks Chris Angel does are just amazing, you know they're not real - they can't be. But still. The card between 2 panes of glass is cool.
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These magic guys control the card in spite of appearing not to. There is an odd camera edit at 1:53. He may have handed the card off to a shill. He doesn't let the crowd know that he is going to embed it in the glass door until he leads them over there. A shill could go unnoticed planting the card into a mechanism in the door (because nobody is looking over there yet). At the instant the card appears in the glass there is a mechanical sound. Comments on the video by Luxor visitors say that this door glass is laminated (2 panes) while all others are single pane.
 
More work on the glass card trick. The girl signs her own name on the card then Chris signs his name with "LOVE". For the "E" he just uses three horizontal lines. Anyway, the writing on the embedded card is not a perfect match to the card in his hand after they have both signed it. Similar but not matching.

There may be a shill who is near the door and with a video monitor. He sees the card on the monitor and approximates her signature. The shill starts out with a full deck and each card has already been signed by Chris in the same manner as he will do with the actual card in front of the audience. Minor variations won't matter because the audience will not recall his exact complex signature, nor will she recall her exact signature. If the shill is close in copying her signature the trick will work.

But Chris can't let the real card fall onto the floor. He either removes it from his deck or he retains it in his hand. He doesn't appear to clearly drop every card onto the floor. He may palm a few remainders and he does swing his arm behind him without showing that no cards remain in his hand. Of course at that moment all eyes are on the embedded card.

This is just a guess.


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As someone who has had a lifelong interest in magic, and has worked as a magician, I will say this: Most of Criss Angel's effects can only be done on video. One of the biggest complaints people have with his stage show in Vegas is that he does the same tricks other magicians do and not the one's from his tv shows. Doug Henning, David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone, etc could all do the same tricks from their tv shows on stage and even the tv shows were done in front of real audiences. It's well known among working actors who read the trades that Criss Angel advertises to hire the 'random spectators' for his tv episodes.
 
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I saw David copperfield live. I loved it. His illusions are much more impressive in person. On tv there can always be edits and weird camera angles. In person it's right there.
 
I've also seen Copperfield live, and while it was impressive, I believe many of his illusions that involved Audience Participation used plants.
 
I know this is an old thread so lets revise this. A german film crew filmed a african shaman levitating in the air. This is an old broadcasting i am guessing between the late 80's to early 90's. Apparently some suggest that the shaman is actually flying and that there is no strings or tricks involved.



Its at night so we can not see what it is happening around him.
 
Notice the lack of any wide shots from the cameraman behind him, so you can't see what's there holding him up.
 
phunk said:
Notice the lack of any wide shots from the cameraman behind him, so you can't see what's there holding him up.
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Some of people think where is he going to get a crane or what not to actually lift him up because its in the third world country.So the person immediately suggest that nothing is fishy about this event. I know its fake because of the night gives him an impression that he is being guided by spirits. Many people believe that him doing it in the day time would not be affective and the sun weakens the spirits.
 
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IdiotWhacker said:
Some of people think where is he going to get a crane or what not to actually life him up because its in the third world country.So the person immediately suggest that nothing is fishy about this event.
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Who needs a crane? A sturdy branch and some assistants in the background could do it.

The camera crew is obviously in on it or they would have better footage.
 
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