The novel Carter Beats the Devil tells the story of a stage magician in the 1930s. In one of the side plots, he crosses paths with Philo Farnsworth, who is trying to drum up interest in his invention - television.
For the magician, this seems like a wonderful opportunity to bring close-up magic to large audiences. His vision is a theater hall with a TV screen at every seat. In this way, an audience of hundreds or thousands could all have an intimate view of sleight of hand tricks that would otherwise be too far away to see.
I get the appeal, and really appreciate the ability of television to bring this kind of intimate stage magic to a larger audience. But in Carter, everyone is physically present, live, when the tricks are being performed. Magician, audience, and camera, all together. All of the illusions happen entirely on screen, no edits, no cuts, just whatever the magician's hands can do in frame, live*.
So I have misgivings about pre-recorded table magic. Because of the implication, that there's always the possibility of editing or post-production effects, rather than nothing but the sheer skill and artistry of the magician in the moment. I know this guy is almost certainly on the up-and-up. He does seem to be doing single takes with no editing tricks. But still. The medium takes some of the pleasure out of it, for me.
For reasons I can't explain, I have this problem only with self-filmed and self-edited close-up magic. Pre-recorded streaming footage of commercial stage magic - i.e., shows put on by professional magicians for paying customers, on a big stage - don't bother me in this way at all. No matter how many cuts and camera-switches are involved. A stream of a Fool Us! episode that aired last year? Fine with me. This guy's work should be fine with me too, but...
Anyway, I'm glad he's found an audience, and I'd be happy to see him perform live, if the opportunity arose.
*Obviously this setup admits a class of illusions based on replacing the live feed with something pre-recorded. But that, to me, is a very ugly trick. If there's cheating in stage magic, I'd say this kind of thing would qualify.
