David Copperfield show last night! ??Levitation??
Just wondering... did anyone see the DCopperfield show last night. Wow <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" /> <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> How did he do it. I mean levitate those guys off the stage and then put them in the box and do the same. could it be a magnetic field or something? please help me figure this one out! I'd sure like to know.
Open for ideas. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
--If David Copperfield can Levitate! Why can't Jobs make a descent Powermac!--
Open for ideas. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
--If David Copperfield can Levitate! Why can't Jobs make a descent Powermac!--
Comments
Do a google search. Maybe someone has explained the trick somewhere.
<strong>Just wondering... did anyone see the DCopperfield show last night. Wow <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" /> <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> How did he do it. I mean levitate those guys off the stage and then put them in the box and do the same. could it be a magnetic field or something? please help me figure this one out! I'd sure like to know.
Open for ideas. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
--If David Copperfield can Levitate! Why can't Jobs make a descent Powermac!--</strong><hr></blockquote>
Easy to explain. He used twins, mirrors, smoke, and holograms. Like most magic trick illusions. If I knew the rest of the details, I might go into the magic business myself.
I just totally made that up...maybe he's Jebus or something
[ 07-27-2002: Message edited by: Willoughby ]</p>
<strong>He has magnets under his clothes and a large magnet under the stage. They're opposites so the force against them pushes him into the air.
I just totally made that up...maybe he's Jebus or something
[ 07-27-2002: Message edited by: Willoughby ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
On the show I saw last night he had to guys come on stage and sit on a red sofa. He covered them with a white sheet before levitating them and the sofa about 20' in the air. <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" />
While in the air he pulled the sheet off showing that it was truley hovering. The audience had seating positions completely around the stage which was lifted 2.5' off the ground on circular columns. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> I didn't see any magnets under the stage and still haven't figured it out.
Anyone dig anything up yet?
<img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
The levitation trick though... that was amazing. It looks just as astounding in person.
[ 07-27-2002: Message edited by: Hitomi Kawa ]</p>
BUT the one thing I loved was when he took 30 or so ppl from the audiunce and asked them onto the stage sat em all down pulled a curtain waaved his hands etc and they all disapperead in a very short time!!! I was amazed!!!
<strong>I saw him make a 747 disappear and walk through the Great Wall of China. I also hear he has been working on making Lady Liberty disappear for years.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You mean he made Lady Liberty disappear years ago. Don't you remember that?
Look it up, he did it back in the 80s
<strong>Wires and cranes. Yes, I'm serious.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess on the show I watched he snapped his fingers and made the wires and cranes disappear too.
Don't think so. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
[ 07-28-2002: Message edited by: jkarc21 ]</p>
"Don't lose confidence in an effect because it has been presented many times before. An old trick in "good hands" is always new. Just see to it that yours are "Good hands."
-- Houdini-1920
I guess seeing it for yourself doesn't help us to discover any secrets either. According to everyone in this thread who has witnessed it, they are astonished, amazed and have no idea.
Smoke and mirrors sounds cool, but where are they when he's on a 360 degree stage that you can see under and above. It seems all speculative situations that could occur in a performance like a magnetic field under the stage are completely eliminated by floating the stage level with the viewing plane of the audience. Its like he's showing you his cards but you don't see them!
Again,lets keep speculating... Jkarc21
<strong>Wires and cranes. Yes, I'm serious.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I thought he used wires and cranes to make the Statue of Liberty disappear. They were positioned between the audience and the statue, off to each side, and used to either drop or lift a huge black sheet. Its as simple as that.
[ 07-31-2002: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
What amazed me was the fact that in so many of them, the audience was INDEED in on it, and it was meant to play to the TV crowd.
Other times, it was simple misdirection and optics (tricking the eye with perspective, angles, distance, etc.). The misdirection is just ages-old slight of hand work.
Funny thing is, now when I watch a magician (especially a lower-rung, non-pro type), I'm watching everything BUT the trick. Doing that, I've caught many of their "moves".
If you know what to look for.
However, Copperfield and Penn and Teller and others will DEMONSTRATE that, THEN proceed to totally blow it out of the water and STILL do the trick after showing "how it's done"...and the trick is 5 levels beyond the standard version of it!
Amazing.
I STILL don't know how Copperfield got those two guys on the couch to levitate. Then dropped them into that glass, walled area, sealed it up and still made them float. We'll probably never know. But rest assured, it is an illusion. And chances are, it's way more simple and "of course!" than we probably imagine.
For him to do that stuff with a 360 audience is pretty cool, because on that "Magician's Secrets Revealed" show, SO many of the tricks hinged on the audience being in the standard "front of the stage" position. In other words, LOTS of the tricks involved stuff going on BEHIND the box/tank/cage/etc., out of the audience's view.
With a "stage in the round" set-up like Copperfield had on his show the other night, that takes that completely off the table!
:eek:
Notice the guys on the couch never touch the arm rests? Thats because its attached to a "flying rig" of very thin strands of wire. Too small to see. There's many strands in specific locations. That way when it comes to a dead stop it doesn't sway. Its an engineering marvel, really. He actually has patents on it. Though I doubt you'll be able to find them easily and probably won't be under his own name.
It doesn't matter if people are seated all around the stage. The rig is coming down from above and the lighting and backgrounds are key.
"But Willoughby, what about the glass box?!"
If you look closely you'll notice that the top lid of the box is a bit narrower than the box itself, allowing a slight space on both sides of the box for the wires to pass through.
:cool:
It's all engineering, optics and misdirection. But done right, it's amazing to look at.
What about that David Blaine guy? I saw a show of us where he - in the middle of the street - would turn around and appear to levitate himself. Of course there's some sort of trick to it, but he was shown from several angles, outside (no studio) and people were freaking out!
It looked SO real!
He uses a really old school trick called the "Balducci Method". Its all about angles. You position the audience (notice they're usually 2 people standing right next to each other) at a 45 degree angle to you and use one foot to push yourself into the air. Ok ok..its sounds dumb, but trust me, you can't see the tippy toe that is pushing you a few inches off the ground. It really looks like you're hovering.
So from 45 degrees those 2 people think "wow he's floating" and freak out. Now they take that video clip and edit with a clip of him being hoisted by a makeshift crane that is attached to his waist.
So he's using a old school trick and simple camera editing techniques. Its a big sham.
He could never perform that trick on stage. Thats why its always in front of a very small crowd out on the street. He even picks a spot with good shadows.