Which magician do you love to hate?
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There's a grand irony in the fact that when I told that joke everyone thought I was serious and I got crucified.
Chris Angel is everyone's love to hate magician, because he brings the TV audience into it. His shows aren't for the live audience all the time. (I saw his live show in Vegas btw, and it was absolutely off the hook, he is definitely a great performer.) His TV show does what David Blaine did. The fact is, street magic, works on the street, but compared to what people now see on TV on a daily basis (Special effects filled dramas etc) street magic just doesn't seem that magical. What Blaine did in his early work, is take his street magic (which is awesome) and then add some extra bonus material to it that makes it as impactful on the TV as it is to watch in real life. So there was invariably some camera trickery, but not with regards the working of the effect, just some addition to it to make the audience at home part of the trick.
This pretty much sums up Chris Angel's entire approach to TV magic. The trick isn't there to work on the live audience. (Unless you genuinely belive that he can fly and is indeed magic) it's to create speculation and wonder in the people watching it at home. Sure he uses stooges for some of his effects, but that's no worse than countless stage magicians (David Copperfield being a golden example of stooge usage. I also caught him in Vegas, and he was off the hook too. It's interesting no one *****es about him using stooges.)
You either like Angel's style or you don't. I like bits of it, because he does something. By either camera trickery or some other effect he uses setting, location and stooge to make me wonder how he achieves the effects. Is it camera trickery, something else? Stooges? The point is, I sit and I wonder how he does it, which is the goal of any magician. You can't just dismiss it as stooges, or camera trickery, or sleight of hand. It's a powerful mixture of all three. And for the record his card magic is awesome. He smashed some out on stage and it was off the chart.
Not anyone can do what he does. It's not easy. His persona, his performance, his sleight of hand, his getting real reactions from the audience combined with camera effects and trickery, his surrounded levitation based on very clever wire hook ups and the scale of his illusions. Not anyone can do it. It's hard and his magic makes people wonder. It's easy to hate his persona because it's very pretentious, but it gets him attention. I have a friend and whenever he sees anyone do a card trick he's like, "Yeah it's a double lift" whether it is or not, because he's an idiot, lol. Don't be that guy, yelling it's -all- camera tricks whether it is nor not, or its -all- stooges lol. Not everything he does is a camera trick, there's a subtlety to the presentation of the effects, and in that lies his genius. People would like him a lot more if they could figure out exactly what he was doing a lot of the time because then it wouldn't threaten their world view so much. (And by that I mean, the belief that they can figure out any trick they see using their 1337 brain powerz0rz.
PS. For the record I hate him too, lol.
This pretty much sums up Chris Angel's entire approach to TV magic. The trick isn't there to work on the live audience. (Unless you genuinely belive that he can fly and is indeed magic) it's to create speculation and wonder in the people watching it at home. Sure he uses stooges for some of his effects, but that's no worse than countless stage magicians (David Copperfield being a golden example of stooge usage. I also caught him in Vegas, and he was off the hook too. It's interesting no one *****es about him using stooges.)
You either like Angel's style or you don't. I like bits of it, because he does something. By either camera trickery or some other effect he uses setting, location and stooge to make me wonder how he achieves the effects. Is it camera trickery, something else? Stooges? The point is, I sit and I wonder how he does it, which is the goal of any magician. You can't just dismiss it as stooges, or camera trickery, or sleight of hand. It's a powerful mixture of all three. And for the record his card magic is awesome. He smashed some out on stage and it was off the chart.
Not anyone can do what he does. It's not easy. His persona, his performance, his sleight of hand, his getting real reactions from the audience combined with camera effects and trickery, his surrounded levitation based on very clever wire hook ups and the scale of his illusions. Not anyone can do it. It's hard and his magic makes people wonder. It's easy to hate his persona because it's very pretentious, but it gets him attention. I have a friend and whenever he sees anyone do a card trick he's like, "Yeah it's a double lift" whether it is or not, because he's an idiot, lol. Don't be that guy, yelling it's -all- camera tricks whether it is nor not, or its -all- stooges lol. Not everything he does is a camera trick, there's a subtlety to the presentation of the effects, and in that lies his genius. People would like him a lot more if they could figure out exactly what he was doing a lot of the time because then it wouldn't threaten their world view so much. (And by that I mean, the belief that they can figure out any trick they see using their 1337 brain powerz0rz.
PS. For the record I hate him too, lol.
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There is a big difference in Blaine and Angel in how they present these tricks to the audience. Blaine unlike most TV magicians made his spectators really part of show. You aren't just entertained by his tricks, but how it affects the spectators. When I think about the show I often remember the people he did the magic for. Criss Angel's show often just has faceless crowd watching a stage style "big" effect being done out doors. To me it feels dry. I have the same problem with many other stage magicians.
I never said their wasn't a big difference. Blaine attempts to share the reaction the spectators have on the street with the audience at home and uses some camera hyperbole to make them part of it.
Angel's whole approach to magic is create an illusion based on seemingly impossible settings, lol.
The idea of the trick being on the audience at home is true as a theme used by both, but in different ways.
Angel's whole approach to magic is create an illusion based on seemingly impossible settings, lol.
The idea of the trick being on the audience at home is true as a theme used by both, but in different ways.
Like several others, I don't like the basic premise of this thread, but it did capture my attention. Instead of ignoring it, though, I want to come to the defense of Brad and E.
First E. Sure E sells a lot of overpriced DVDs and instant downloads, but so does Theory11, Penguin, and all of the bigger magic websites. Whose fault is that? I don't think they actually claim to be offering more than they do. We as consumers choose to pay for this stuff, and we often get the disappointment of discovering that a miraculous magic trick can look just like a cheap but clever gimmick once it's exposed.
As for Brad, his most annoying problem for me, once I got past his style of teaching, is that he seems to know very little about the history of magic. But I think he's an excellent teacher for beginners/intermediates learning basic sleights. He's patient, and the camera work is excellent. And his technique is, in my opinion, quite good. His "invisible pass" is a real workhorse in my own magic.
So, let's tone down the bashing. There are many wonderful magicians out there who can teach us something valuable about magic, even if you decide that you don't really want to do it the way they do.
First E. Sure E sells a lot of overpriced DVDs and instant downloads, but so does Theory11, Penguin, and all of the bigger magic websites. Whose fault is that? I don't think they actually claim to be offering more than they do. We as consumers choose to pay for this stuff, and we often get the disappointment of discovering that a miraculous magic trick can look just like a cheap but clever gimmick once it's exposed.
As for Brad, his most annoying problem for me, once I got past his style of teaching, is that he seems to know very little about the history of magic. But I think he's an excellent teacher for beginners/intermediates learning basic sleights. He's patient, and the camera work is excellent. And his technique is, in my opinion, quite good. His "invisible pass" is a real workhorse in my own magic.
So, let's tone down the bashing. There are many wonderful magicians out there who can teach us something valuable about magic, even if you decide that you don't really want to do it the way they do.
D
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