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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
I finally have a working principle for the long sought-after vampire/mirror enigma !
(Hereto and forthwith referred to as VME) This really works, to a point. To be honest, it would be quite a production to get this to work with a human being or equivalently sized object, but, what I have here is proof of concept. Thank you Borodin for the inspiration !! I'm going to link to my website with a photo that demonstrates (demon-strates ? ;-) the general idea, and you can see it work for yourself ! The object in front of the mirror plainly appears to be there, yet, it casts no reflection in the mirror whatsoever ! Argh.. well, I was hoping to get this pic up tonight, but it really doesn't look very good, and you can hardly tell if it "works" or not, frankly. Stupid 2nd gen digital camera !! It needs too much light for any indoor shots, and then the flash tends to wash things out. Also, I'm dealing with near focus and not-so-near focus, which is also a little bit of an issue. I'm going to have to come up with a better way to shoot this.. I hope by Thursday night I figure out a better way. I didn't mean for this to become a hype issue, (you know how that drill goes, "Pre-order now, this is the greatest thing you've ever seen, la la la, oh dear, there's a delay because the factory we contracted to blah blah blah but order yours now, it's fantastic, dum de dum de dum oh, don't listen to those first few reviews, they just got defective prototypes, I promise it''ll be worth it .." >:-D None o' that malarky here. Certainly no "ordering" of any kind either It's just that you'll laugh when you do see the picture/method, and a picture is worth a thousand words, so for now, the word is mum.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Gede Nibo Inner circle 2447 Posts |
I cant wait to learn the concept...it is amazing how it is described in Borodin's book (still cant spell it)
so is it something that can be purchased or made easily? |
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Eight Spades Elite user Ohio (northwest) 482 Posts |
I'm very interested. Borodin has been a big inspiration for me too. Keep us posted.
-Christian
"Tricks are only the crude residue from which the lifeblood of magic has been drained." -S.H. Sharpe
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sinnead zenun Elite user Mt. Makiling 408 Posts |
Im interested too... goodluck mystician
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Can this be done closeup, is in a reverse of the Roth/Harris Twilight effect?
A coin that has no reflection or worse has a reflection of a differnt object entirely? :D PM if up for discussing
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
I would say it would work best "semi" closeup.. perhaps "parlor" style magic would be the best environment. I will admit that's it's extremely angle sensitive, and would require a good bit of control, but under the right circumstances, would be pretty stunning, not to mention spooky.
By the way, this happened entirely by coincidence, I wasn't consciously looking to solve this "riddle", but I happened to look in the mirror while playing around with "it", and went, "Ohh! Cool !" I'll say this much - It uses an item/principle described in Sheherazade - some of you will probably figure it out from that alone - as I said, it's basically just a proof of concept I have here, nothing fully worked out in terms of practicality. Okay, the picture is up. I cleaned it up a bit, did some cropping, some gamma and level adjustments, and a bit of sharpen. I initially resisted doing any kind of photoshop work on it because I didn't want to court any accusations of "touching" the photo up, but OTOH, the picture, in it's "native" state, didn't really do a very good job of clearly and honestly presenting the effect as it actually appears either. I had to keep the high resolution to maintain the clarity, and the picture is sideways - that's just the way it oriented itself. I may change that though.. in fact, I should... will. But for now, anyway, it's up there. Again, please note this is just a proof of concept - for this to actually be usuable, it would require some imagination and work, but I don't think that's a serious challenge for most of us here. For now, I think the most practical application would be to display an item with "vampiric" properties. That alone should generate a few good ideas, when I have time I'll work on one of my own. Just don't expect some revolutionary breakthrough here. I'm sure this has occurred to Borodin, and others, as well, and indeed, he has very cleverly put this thing to fantastic use. The link: http://www.phrets.com/mirror My workplace has just kicked up the pace for me about 6 notches and I'm moving soon into a new title w/ new job responsibilities, so I will not have the time that I've enjoyed over the last several months to brainstorm on new ideas and so forth, which is what I enjoy the most. (Well, lets face it, how fun is practicing palming or the double lift for hours on end ? ) Therefore, it pains me a bit to think that somebody else will most likely come up with a nice effect or routine using this before I will, but, cie la vie. Okay, the picture is right side up now. Don't ask me what I was thinking, I don't know.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Clifford the Red Inner circle LA, California 1941 Posts |
The only incongruency I see is the item appears to be sitting on a mirror itself, with a reflection! But if you raise the hologram to eye-level to eliminate them seeing a mirror below the object, the hologram is no longer visible! Caramba! I've thought about this too as you can see
Maybe you can come up with some mythos regarding "only being able to be reflected from Hell's mirrors from below", or something.
"The universe is full of magical things, waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Eden Philpotts
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
The trick is to sit the parabola INTO the table, and have a real statue that you pretend to put onto the table. You can now guess the rest. Talk about a cute use of a black art table... lol
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
There's a number of things you can do about the mirror^2 effect, sort of.. using a large disc to sit the piggie on, for example.. (piggie being just an example.. what a weird example, but that's what they ship with the thing ! )
Also, if you watch the angles carefully, the mirror/mirror thing is not big deal. I didn't really have the time and freedom to get a better shot. I think it goes without saying, you should build a box to sit this thing into to disguise it's true nature, or, like Jonathan said, build it into a table. One problem is that you pretty much need to maintain a 45 degree angle, and the taller the item is, the more strict the angles become. I was thinking of using some kind of divider, partition, or whatever, to restrict seeing it outside the "sweet spot" - the justification for such a thing of course, becomes the hard part.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Even a coin would work just fine. Claim the person on the coin was a vampire and that they cast no reflection. put clear plastic over the top of the thing, put coin down, then while pattering, slide plastic over, and PRETEND to put coin down heads up and go from there.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Anyone have any Romanian coins circa 1460 ? :-D
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Clifford the Red Inner circle LA, California 1941 Posts |
I want one of the giant holograms!! OOooooo!! I wonder just how big you can get these! With a real big one, you could build it into the middle of a kitchen table and the entire centerpiece could be a hologram.
"The universe is full of magical things, waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Eden Philpotts
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-06-10 13:37, Clifford the Red wrote: Careful what you wish for, the price goes up exponentially ! The largest one they currently make is 22" across, total, not the actual hologram area. I think it sells for around $1500 ! http://www.optigone.com/m22.htm
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Clifford the Red Inner circle LA, California 1941 Posts |
Yeah I saw that one, but I want a 36" one, and using their dimensional ratios, that would give me about a 10" hologram! You could mount that under a table, suitably modified, with a table cloth and a hole cut out for the hole and some illusionary edging would make it look like a tablecloth with a mirror in the center and the centerpiece on top of it. Of course if you are evil like me, you could put the salt and pepper shakers there
"The universe is full of magical things, waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Eden Philpotts
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
I wonder how hard it would be, or how expensive, to look at the general ratio/curvature/angles/whatever of the parabolic mirror, and go to an optical supply house and have them custom make one for you ? An even mirrored finish is critical here, but decent optical mfg'ing places should be able to oblige - in fact, the primary mirror for a good size dobsonian/newtonian telescope might be just the ticket, but if the curvature isn't quite right, at least they can put the mirror finish on something that *is* the correct curvature, that much I know, from one of my other hobbies - Astronomy. You would need two of these mirrors, place them face to face, with the top one having a hole cut in the center.
Speaking of Astronomy, has anyone noticed the big, bright star that comes out right after dark, if you look south-southeast ? If not, go out and look. That aint' no star, that's Jupiter, and with nothing more than a decent set of binoculars, you can even see it's 4 main moons (the Galilean moons) - Callisto, Io, Europa, and Ganymede. Jupiter has dozens more moons, but they are much smaller and not visible w/o a telescope. You also won't be able to see the Galileans w/o binoculars, what you might think you see as the moons with the naked eye are just the stars in the "nearby" field of vision - hundreds or thousands of light-years further away. Neat stuff.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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aquariusmagic Regular user England 122 Posts |
Hi Mystician, All I can see when I click your link is a blank page. Any ideas.
regards Francis |
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Whoops, my bad. It's fixed now.
The problem was a technical flaw, the FTP app I used to upload modified versions of the file is whacky, and corrupted the upload. Sorry 'bout that. All better now .. ;-)
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Traveler Special user 549 Posts |
Are you referring to Sheherazade? If so, which effect ? And if you refer to "final curtain", any idea when the translation will be out ?
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-06-12 14:07, Traveler wrote: Sheherazade, yes, the title effect, the first one in the book. It's all in the angles, basically. I don't know anything about Final Curtain, sorry.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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aquariusmagic Regular user England 122 Posts |
Hi Mystician et al,
This sounds similar to "A Phantom Treat " on page 270 of Dunninger's Encyclopaedia of Magic. I have never been able to make it work though. If anyone else has, I would be most interested to know. yours magically Francis |
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