Although I have a fair collection of books on illusion design none of them go into much detail about the construction of a bevelled base. Yes, Paul Osbourne touches on it in his first book and others show line drawings but no-one goes into the fine detail of how to actually construct one from scratch...what type of material to use, what thickness, how it is supported and joined, how to calculate the compound angles etc.

Does anyone know of a resource that covers this topic in depth?

GOOGLE knows all:

https://illusionbookstore.com/product/pr......se-work/

https://www.magicinc.net/products/illusi......ases-dvd
or
https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/explan......ual-3709

If you can find a copy:
https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic-books/the-base-book/

This may go over like a lead balloon here, but a base is not an end in itself. As far as the audience is (should be) concerned, all a base is is a way to roll the box onstage and off. The base should not call attention to itself.

If the base is really needed to make the box work, then it should be integrated into the design of the box.

Yes! Good thoughts on this George (of course you are a professional theatrical designer , so this comes second nature to you , but many of us need to be reminded.

Indeed, a base should never be an end in itself. It's just something there on stage to support a box or some other prop , it should not register in the mind of the audience as something special or out of the ordinary. It should be perceived of as merely functional.

I have always liked how Dennis Loomis integrated the design of the base with the house in his version of The Doll's House Illusion. Part of the base is green , representing the "grass" the house sits on and part of the base is the stone foundation of the house , but because they are broken up into separate elements with different colors , it's deceptive. (Dennis's design also has some great things happening with forced perspective and breaking up the space on the outside and inside of the house to increase the deception).

Yes, Dennis' design works because it's all one visual image: a dollhouse on grass. It doesn't look like a dollhouse on a generic black-with-chrome-accents magician's base. Also note the legs are plain black: they look like they were just added to the thing to move it around.

Just now I did an online search for "dollhouse illusion" and there are several that look like a dollhouse that someone placed on a table. That works too because a table is a logical thing on which to place a dollhouse. But it doesn't have to look like a magician's table: if the house is "Victorian," the table can certainly be mid-to-late 19th century. There are lots of resources online for inspiration.

Looking at it from the audience's perspective, there's no reason for a base to be larger than necessary to hold what's on it. A generic beveled base can end up quite a big larger than that and stand out like a sore thumb.

This one is quite nice. The table looks like the sort of table you might see a dollhouse displayed on and the table draws no particular attention to itself. To me, this is a deceptive base, despite not being beveled, no chrome trim, not painted black.

Thank you for your feedback. I have been a student of illusion for some decades and have read much of the wisdom of the great designers in our craft and have hopefully assimilated a little of it and some of the props I have built over the years have been used by pros on stage and cruise ships.

I have most of the resources mentioned and with the exception of the Base Book they all solely detail the construction of a multi-level step base sometimes with the Wakeling subtlety. The Base Book, on pages 14 and 15 shows basic, external view, line drawings and suggested depth measurements of a bevelled base but does not give any advice on internal construction or how to determine the complex angles involved which is a little disappointing given the actual title of the publication but then as Homer Simpson once observed the book 'To Kill a Mockingbird' does not actually tell you how to kill mockingbirds.

I know that the bevelled base seems to have gone out of fashion, especially since Penn and Teller exposed it with their Buzz Saw Thin Sawing variant, but it's just something I would have liked to have played around with.

There are two versions. The most standard involves making the main frame that contains the girl and then adding struts to the outside. These are spaced out about six inches. Think of how a model airplanes wings are made. Boards are connected on top, bottom and along the outer edges connecting everything. This version has no space access to the beveled area. Old school design was stealing a lot of space using the bevel but a wiser approach is to use it modestly and steal perhaps 1/2 inch of depth over the bevel width of 6-8 inches. For the junctions on the beveled corners, trial and error to make them match up is required initially using short boards which can be saved as templates for future builds.
The other version has full use of the beveled area ( rarely used this way but sometimes for small dollhouse style). This requires building a knockdown frame that the base is built around with reenforced corners.
The inside frame is then removed.

Thanks Craig.

The construction of a bevelled base seems as much of an art as a science.

In Jim Steinmeyer's wonderful book 'Device & Illusion' he mentions how often a 'wedged base' is misunderstood by some builders and how he himself was still learning about this principle.

About learning...It seems that some people are misunderstanding what a bevelled base actually is and keep pointing to a detailed design in Rand Woodbury's 'Base Book' (which appears on the cover) for a step or multi-level base in which some levels have their edges bevelled in order to increase deception. This is not a bevelled base it is a step base with bevels.

There are many good resources to teach good step base construction; two of my favourites are...

Rand Woodbury 'Illusionworks' DVD 1

Gerry Frenette 'How to Build Your Own Illusions' DVD set

While there are other fine resources on base construction these DVDs actually take you through the process of building a base from cutting the wood to decorating the prop. Highly recommended.

Abbotts Asrah plans have a good detail of a bevel construction.

One consideration is at what angle your audience is viewing the base, from above, from below, straight on. A bevel base straight on in normal lighting is not that deceptive. That is why some use a mild taper on the top with a frame work around, and then a bottom that is dished, think traditional Asrah table.

Another design is what was used some of the original casket illusions or the Vanishing Princess of Thebes. A bottom that is hinged at the front of the illusion base which expands to the back side of the illusion to form the chamber to hide the person. When the person is produced it collapses and becomes a flat base bottom. In some situations the cover cloth was draped at the back on the base to cover side angles, and a view from the back.

Blair