Magic: What's the secrets behind it.

[Charles]

First, do you believe that magic somehow is not just a trick?

Anyone has experience with this? How can David Cooperfield or Lance Burton make huge stuffs disappear?

 

[chipbgt]

camera angles, misdirection, "smoke and mirrors"...

 

[JoeKing]

dude, it's all illisions and doing things that don't seem possible. But often times when you learn how the trick is done you go...ohh yeah

Like how copperfield made the statue of liberty disappear.....he made the perspective change.... that's all I can tell you without killing you

 

[atom]

Joeyman is right, there is a good reason you won't see Copperfield make tanks disappear in person. You really need to see those Magic: Secrets Revealed shows they used to have on Fox. Once you see how it's really done you just laugh.

The stuff that really gets to me is the sleight of hand stuff. I know how some of the stuff is done, but still it amazes me because you're right next to the magician and he still pulls it off.

 

[Oda]

Sometimes to make things disappear the magician releases lots of nanobots to temporarily turn the object-to-be-gone into a mixture of the gases of the air, then when everyone's left the hall he turns the air back into the object.

Magicians don't often make things like statues disappear because people would notice that after they 'reappear' they often look cleaner than they were before, because the 'reappeared' object is made anew.

 

[JoeKing]

yeah, skill magic as opposed to mechanical magic is often more impressive when you realize how much work the magician puts into the trick.

 

[nEoTeChMaN]

...You see me.

 

[nEoTeChMaN]

neo disappeared.....

 

[nEoTeChMaN]

Amazing, huh?

nEo

 

[Charles]

nEo, you are so funny

 

[Triumph]

anyone know of any websites/books that teach you the sleight of hand stuff? like making quarters disappear and whatnot?

 

[rahvin]

quarters are easy, just gotta teach yourself to hold it between two fingers and to position it with one hand. The good hand tricks are stuff you teach yourself, something that someone else does might not work for your because your coordination or control isn't there in that aspect. The thing you have to remember with hand tricks is that it will often be obvious to you what you did, but an outsider won't see it. The hand is quicker than the eye...

 

[The Wildcard]

Yeah actually i think magic is at its best when it deals with the small time magic tricks, like with cards and quarters and like floating dollar bills. That's what really amuses and amazes people.

On the other hand, when you levtiate people, cut off their heads or make space shuttles dissappear.....well that makes it stupid. Have any of you guys seen Lance Burton? JEsus he's cool cuz he always starts off with some amuzing slight of hand tricks, or also tricks that involve cards, hankerchiefs, birds, stuff like that. he does it for like 15 minuts or something, just non stop magic.

 

[The Wildcard]

One thing i would like to know is how to do that twisting of the arm/elbow thingy people do. they like can fully turn their arm with their hands firmly on the ground in a 360 degree motion. Is that a double jointed trick or something?

 

[JoeKing]

A little flexability and a long sleeve shirt is a must here. I'm not sure if this is the right way, but this is the way I dot it and it looks excatly like the ones on TV. Plus I can get about a 2 full rotations in.

 

[bones10]

I've spent a little bit of time learning slight of hand tricks. Here let me make you all disappear.. <<takes glasses off>>. Whoa! where'd you all go? .

Actually the part about learning slight of hand is true. Good slight of hand is done when the hand is *not* quicker than the eye. It is done when people are looking right at your hands.

There are a couple of good books on slight of hand with cards and slight of hand with coins that are easy to read. Some of them are a lot harder to read, becuase magicians don't necisarliy make good writers. I think the book on coin magic is called &quot;Bobo's coin magic&quot; or something like that. It has been a long time since I have picked up any of these books. If you go into a magic shop, they will probably have these books.

Slight of hand takes a lot of practice an patience. Practicing in front of a mirror usually helps.

Now a word of caution. Don't go around spoiling other people's magic tricks by revealing how they did it. It's rather like crapping on someone's thread in a forum. If you aren't sure you can keep a secret, then don't learn how magic tricks work.

- bones

P.S. I got out of magic becuase it seems a number of people into magic are also into the occult.