lol, the problem is this guy has no expression. it is terrible to watch "his" stuff. terrible magician. and why should someone wants to stop bashing blaine? I cannot stand him, and I am not afraid saying so. in my opinion, he doesn't deserve this fame. and all that stupid stunts....unbelievable ridiculous and endlessly boring.

I've posted this on another thread months ago but I think it belongs here.

David Blaine is not about those 2 hour taped TV specials...his stunts are all about touching people during the weeks leading up to those TV specials.

http://darkartsmedia.com/Blaine.html

Watch the faces of the spectators...they are drawn and entertained by his LIVE performance art. There is no doubt.

Couldn't agree with you more, Johnny. Any magician watching even half hour of any episode can tell immediately they are edited and that the people at home are not seeing what the people on the street are seeing.

Houdini could not make an elephant disappear anytime, anywhere.

Copperfield couldn't make the Statue of Liberty disappear anytime, anywhere.

It's really hard for anybody at all to perform the Asrah Levitation anytime, anywhere.

Lot's of magic can only be performed under certain, very controled conditions.

What exactly is your point?

Aren't we supposed to give the impression that our magic can be performed anytime anywhere?

Come over to my house this afternoon and make an elephant disappear, please.

Others have performed it live. Why can't you?

Not sure what the elephant has to do with anything.... point is, magic didn't work on tv until Wilson assured them for decades that no editing or camera trickery was taking place- and he meant it.

Blaine and Angel are exploiting this assumption. They are doing things that home viewers would never have given the time of day years ago. Now when they see Angel walk down the side of a building, surrounded, in broad daylight, they believe that this feat can actually be performed.

Blaine and Angel owe their livelihoods to Mark Wilson.

Great. So what?

Why not worry about the fantastic magic that you can perform live for your audiences?

I've seen one Angel TV show. ONE. His style didn't appeal to me. All of the effects I saw could be performed live, even the really stupid midget babies coming out of the "pregnant woman." (Shudder.) None of them fit with any of the others in the show. His "Snowstorm" effect was performed pretty lamely.

Angel makes the old guy who used to come to my elementary school in the '60s look impressive.

Do you feel he's a threat to you?



As far as the elephant goes, one argument in this thread is that if the magic has to be performed on TV using editing (and I'm not saying whether or not it is) that it's somehow wrong and threatening to other magicians. I'm saying that some magic has to be performed indoors on stage with the lights set low. (Can you float a light bulb three or four feet away from you in broad daylight on the street?)So does the fact that it can't be done on the street surrounded make it bad?

Maybe magician X cannot really walk down the side of a building. But neither could Houdini make the elephant disappear under those conditions.

The problem is... That these magicians claim that what is seen on t.v. is what you would see live. That is just not so. anybody watching CA levitate from one building to another would obviously see what was going on. (no camera edits...Please). If any magi was to levitate in front of me 3,4 feet off the ground, or for that matter anybody else, it would be obvious what was happening. All that is being discussed here is... Lets be truthful to the audience. Lets' give them the illusions that they want. but let us not lie and tell them we can do what the camera assists in doing. And then tell them what you see is what you get. Because then we have lost the trust that the audience has in us.

I hope this is clear. I really don't have the skills in articulating my words like Jonathan Townsend does.

So if I tell the audience that their card vanished from the deck but it really didn't, then is that ok?

Personally, I feel Blaine has brought a great deal to magic, and I have always been a fan. I like his style, and I like his presentation. However, that said I am not a fan of magicians using camera editing to perform effects on television that have NEVER been performed and could never be performed outside of camera trickery. I don't see it as ethical.

The past interviews reprinted in this September's issue of Magic Magazine mirror some of the same issues and opinions being debated here where Mark Wilson is talking about how he feels about camera editing in magic and whether it will hurt magic.

Well, Mark Wilson's thoughts pretty much mirror what I have always believed that in the long run it is going to hurt magic because as he states, "the public will feel cheated and exploited". He states," the viewer must believe that what they see is as it actually happened".

Right under the Mark Wilson section is a section where Blaine and Kalush give their opposing view on the issue of camera editing in magic. Kalush states,"My motto is, any means necessary. I believe the end result is worth the message. You do what you have to do to entertain people, and it's only cheating if you get caught." I think a lot of magicians, like Mr Wilson, are questioning whether this type of thinking will be good for magic long term. From the article they do seem to have opposing views on the subject.

That said I in no way believe having opposing views on a subject mean that one would not be the best of friends.
Peace Beth

Thank you, Beth; Thank you.

Bashing particular perfomers for their specfic "persona" is just plain arrogant. No one bashed Alice Cooper as he took his, Magic/Shock/Music to the stage, why bash Angel? I think he has taken it a lot further and for the better than Cooper ever did and did so in a positive direction.

Blaine, he's a superstar to a lot of up and coming young magicians. I've spoken with quite a few young Blaine fans over the past couple of years, even ones that have seen the unkind remarks on the Café' and other blog sites. Even the young magicians that some percieve as little wannabe's might very well go further than any of us in the craft.

The use of camera trickery and stooges is an age old issue. It came to a peak several years back when Copperfield was "busted". David's shows clearly stated there were no use of camera tricks or stooges, it was an outright lie and when exposed this hurt his reputation. A lot of his reviews in local papers where he's been peforming have been less than favorable sometimes and a lot of it goes back to his mistruths about camera trickery or stooges.

When watching an Angel or Blaine special I have yet to hear this disclaimer used, in essence they are not lying to the public and use what means necessary to accomplish an effect.

One special I would like to see is Blaine doing street magic in the Desire housing projects in New Orleans. That indeed would be an interesting hour of entertainment

Jake

Posted: Oct 15, 2006 9:43pm
Quote:


On 2006-10-12 16:11, magicfish wrote:

Blaine and Angel are exploiting this assumption. Blaine and Angel owe their livelihoods to Mark Wilson.

LOL, No they owe their livlihoods to HARD work, especially Angel. Exploitation? Wilson, Copperfield and others have pushed this envelope to the edge and back.

Criss doesn't know what an 8 hour work day or a 5 day work week is. Most do not know that is take 100's of "man hours" to creat a 1 hour show special. Yeah, like that owe that to Mark Wilson. You aren't even aware of the amount of effects that are actually rehearsed performed and taped and then deleted and not added to a special, dozens actually. Criss worked his way up the ladder, I remember his show in NY, I went to 14 of his peformances, everyone just as entertaining as the other.

When Doug Henning was on Broadway, he usually would come out back of the theatre with the cast and do magic and sign autographs, this was great publicity and what really got me started in magic. Criss did the same thing, but he took to the front of the theatre and streets. This was not only a great PR move but it allowed the average person to interact with Criss. GREAT Idea! Imagine that, the average person being part of an effect with Criss Angel. Maybe Criss exploits this with some camera foolery, good for him!

A bad effect that made a 61 year old look entertaining? What the hell does that mean? I can remember acts that Blackstone Jr, Copperfield, Dingle, Grippo and a lot of other top names do that had one or two poorly routined effects, that doesn't make them any less than any other performer. This remark seems like a cheap jab at both Blaine and Angel and certainly has no merit.

How many hours a day do you practice? Do you eat, breath and live magic? Do you set your sights high and set a goal that you can achieve? Are you willing to give up time with your family, loved ones? Keep hectic schedules, almost impossible ones sometimes? Criss surely has and he has reached his goal. Good for you Criss!

Quit your whining about the headliners and put that energy into practice and making yourself better, rather than trying to demean a successful performer only to distract others from your own inadiquate abilities.

First of all, you know nothing of my abilities.
Secondly, I am all too familiar with the amount of rehearsal, and how much unused footage there is. I do not condone bashing of any kind.
These gentleman don't need a disclaimer; Thanks to Mr. Wilson, home viewers have been conditioned for years to assumke that we would never use any type of editing or camera tricks. I feel the exploitation of this assumption is bad for magic.
As for how often I practice.... for the first 18 to twenty years I practiced probably about 2 to 5 hours a day; now I'm down to about 1 to three.
Your personal attack on me was both unprovoked and unnecessary. A blatant bash.
Sincerely, Magicfish

Oh my, you took this personally there was no personal attack, mearly an observation.

The use of camera editing and trick photography goes back to before the days of Mark Wilson being on TV. I has been used by several peformers, magazines like Genii and others. Yes even the publishers used camera trickery to stage something that looked like magic for their magazines.

Magic is nothing more than a manipulation of anothers senses. A peformer does something that another persons mind simply says can't be done. So wether its done by sleights or by camera editing after the fact, well the overall effect is the same. Criss Angels sleights are superb, but for larger scale effects if he uses camera angles, editing to acheive the effect he hasn't hurt anyone. If he uses stooges, lol, hell that was being done long before any of us were even around. If they found a way to exploit the assistance of technology, good for them.

I'm a little jaded now though, I just came to realize that there must have been camera trickery used to vanish the statue of liberty and the guy who turned into Ultra Man after pressing the Ultra capsule was nothing but camera manipulation....awwwwe bummer man.

I would say it is impossible to observe one's " inadequate abilities" through a computer screen.

Small side note, I want to knwo if any one else has heard about david blane being rude and inconsidarate at coventions and such, I have seen him and he was not very nice, I have also heard he has let the fame get to his head and has a slight god complex,

your thoughs?

Not sure if anyone has seen this david blane comedy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY

Jake: Leave Ulra Man out of this!

Dan: I don't know if David Blaine has treated people poorly at conventions or not, but I can attest to his being escorted out of the dealer's room at the SAM National convention in NYC a few years ago. That scenario which was a negative on David Blaine, Daryl Hannah, and the SAM could have been turned into a positive by being handled differently.
What I have seen of David, he is friendly and open.

As for Criss Angel, I saw his show in NYC, and it was amazing. He has worked hard to get where he is, there is no disputing this. Although I strongly disagree with some of what he has said recently, and his actions on his television show this past year, I will say he is one of the strongest stage performers I have seen in a long time.

Tony Iacoviello

I heard the same thing, somthing about him not having a pass.

also small sidenote
I agree with tony, criss was amazing in NYC back when he was under the WWF buliding, he was also very friendly and after teh show always signed autographs and took pictures

Dan

He did not have a pass, but that could have been easily taken care of. It was the loss of some good publicity for the organization and instead was the opposite. Thinking on it, I wonder if the outcome would have been the same if the David in question had been Copperfield.

Tony