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Offlinejahfeelirie
meatwad

Registered: 10/05/02
Posts: 535
Last seen: 6 days, 16 hours
David Blaine... Levitation?
    #1916516 - 09/14/03 08:03 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Okay,

Some of you have heard of this, some havent.

I was watching TLC and there was a show with magician David Blaine pulling all kinds of cool card tricks on people around New York.

However, his finale was levitating about 6-8 inches off the ground. There were some camera shots of this, showing that he was holding nothing and there were no pulleys or levers. What gives? I have seen it before, but I thought i knew how he did it, by staying at such an angle toward the people and lifting his body with one foot (with his calf muscle)... but it was very obvious that both feet were off the ground at once.

How would this be possible? And of course he acted as though he was very physically taxed by the action, requesting water and support to stand after the fact.

Any ideas? Has he figured out how to alter his gravity or is it some masterful ruse?


EDIT: Apparently people are trying to imitate it... for instance... you can buy this video of how to pull it off....http://www.ellusionist.com/order/king.htm


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my signature is too long

Edited by jahfeelirie (09/14/03 08:04 PM)

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Offlinebarfightlard
tales of theinexpressible
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Posts: 8,670
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1916543 - 09/14/03 08:10 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

It's just an illusion. Notice how the camera angles are always the same.


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"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?" - Bill Hicks

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InvisibletrendalM
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Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada Flag
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1916551 - 09/14/03 08:13 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

They edited the final program so that it looked a LOT better than it really was.

Here's what I've heard about how they did it:

Blaine did a levitation trick for people on the street, but it's an old trick called the Balducci Levitation. It's just like you said: rising up on the ball of one foot several inches. It looks great and they got shots of the amazed people's faces as they saw the shot. You can notice that they show specifically his upper body rising a few inches at first and NOT a full-body shot. Then they show a shot of his legs a foot or two above the sidewalk, with the same people in the background. What they did was got the group of people that Blaine showed the Balducci levitation to and told them they were going to demonstrate how a wire harness levitation works. The shot of his legs a few feet above the sidewalk with the people in the background was shot after the shots of his shoulders rising and the people seeing the Balducci levitation.

:wink:


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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InvisibleJellric
altered statesman

Registered: 11/07/98
Posts: 2,261
Loc: non-local
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1916557 - 09/14/03 08:15 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

I saw him do that too, and it was a very, very effective trick. His acting was well done and aided the suspension of disbelief. Speaking of suspension, I read a website that has some info on it. It's done with wires. With todays technology and materials you can have transparent wires that are not evident, even up close. Above Blaine is a small crane hidden with mirrors used to lift him up.

He's one hell of a magician though, and if you can not only get people to like your trick, but also believe you have actual magic powers, that's a master magician.


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I AM what Willis was talkin' bout.

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Offlinejahfeelirie
meatwad

Registered: 10/05/02
Posts: 535
Last seen: 6 days, 16 hours
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: trendal]
    #1916564 - 09/14/03 08:17 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

what a let down. :frown:

Damn you David Blaine!

yeah, the more I am searching google, the more I am learning that its not psychokinesis, but some good camera trickery.

ah well, it was fun while it lasted.  I should have known, A couple years back i mentioned the phenomenon to an art teacher in college and he performed teh balducci levitation in class, and I nearly freaked... UNTIL i came around to the front of him and saw what he was really doing.

:wink:


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InvisibletrendalM
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Registered: 04/17/01
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1916572 - 09/14/03 08:20 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

A lot of what Blaine does is manipulation. Listen to how he talks and diverts attention during a trick. When he gathers people around to show them the levitation, notice how he never actually says he is going to levitate.

He just keeps saying "watch this! watch! watch! look at my feet!". Then he makes a big show of effort, pulls off the Balducci levitation, and then "collapses" from exhaustion only a few seconds later. He doesn't tell anyone what he's doing beforehand because then it would give them time to figure out the trick before he even starts. If they don't know what they're watching, they don't know where to look for flaws. He holds only for a few seconds because any longer and the initial shock would wear off and give people time to think. That's the trick to magic, though  :wink:

I find the editing for TV to make the "trick" look even more spectacular to be lame. But it's just more manipulation  :smirk:


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Offlinejahfeelirie
meatwad

Registered: 10/05/02
Posts: 535
Last seen: 6 days, 16 hours
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: trendal]
    #1916579 - 09/14/03 08:23 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

in any case, it made me all giddy like a schoolgirl... enough to jump online and figure out what the hell he was doing!

There is something to be said for that I suppose :smile:

Now if i ever see him on the street, I will levitate with him. heh


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InvisibletrendalM
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Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1916593 - 09/14/03 08:30 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Lol, yeah I was pretty amazed the first time I saw his show  :smirk:

And I got online the first chance I had to find bitter dissapointment  :crazy:

:smirk:


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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OfflineHagbardCeline
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: trendal]
    #1916898 - 09/14/03 10:42 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

I find his ability to correctly guess the card that some random person off the street has picked in their head to be a wildly more interesting trick.

Or setting his clothes on fire and with the ashes producing an accurate picture of someone close to his subject is another.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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OfflineZahid
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1916965 - 09/14/03 11:03 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Isn't that one of Sclorch's old avatars?


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InvisibleXibalba
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Registered: 05/13/00
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: Zahid]
    #1916977 - 09/14/03 11:08 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)


Edited by Xibalba (09/29/05 11:39 PM)

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Offlinehyper_dermic
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Registered: 06/26/02
Posts: 736
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #1917245 - 09/15/03 12:50 AM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

i find his ability to correctly guess the card that some random person off the street has picked in their head to be a wildly more interesting trick.





u ever hear of the magic of television?
give me a video camera, and some editing skills and i will do the most amazing tricks you have EVER FUCKIN SEEN....

half of those tricks were staged....
fake, not real, didnt happen that way...
its his show, if he wants to lie and make shit up he can... nothing in the title says any of these tricks are real...

most were old old tricks ive seen a dozen times...
study magic and sleight of hand for a while, its all the same routine...

take the trick where he throws the pack of cards at a window.....
heres how u do it

1 pick the card your gonna force, say the 3 of hearts...
2 glue the 3 of hearts inside a window directly opposite where u will be facing...
3 find your marks, start the trick (make sure their backs are to the window with the card)
4 FORCE the 3 of hearts
5 have them put card back in deck shuffle whatever...
6 THROW CARDS past their heads and at the window....

wow you are magical...


bah... childs play....
david blane can eat my ass....

[hyp]

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Offlineplexus
holding thelight of athousand candles

Registered: 04/24/03
Posts: 1,291
Loc: texas
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: hyper_dermic]
    #1917371 - 09/15/03 02:51 AM (20 years, 6 months ago)

the one i wanna know how he did is the one where he stuck his arm through a 'solid' glass window, picked something up out of the display in the window , and the window was intact and everything... has anyone seen that?


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that there, thats not me. :noway:
i go where i please. :yesnod:
im not here.:shake:
this isnt happening.:nonono:

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Offlinejahfeelirie
meatwad

Registered: 10/05/02
Posts: 535
Last seen: 6 days, 16 hours
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: Zahid]
    #1917491 - 09/15/03 05:44 AM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Zahid said:
Isn't that one of Sclorch's old avatars?





huh?


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InvisibleJellric
altered statesman

Registered: 11/07/98
Posts: 2,261
Loc: non-local
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1917850 - 09/15/03 10:40 AM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Isn't that one of Sclorch's old avatars?





Indeed it is.


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I AM what Willis was talkin' bout.

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OfflineSole_Worthy
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Registered: 04/20/03
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1918069 - 09/15/03 12:25 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

I think what they did for that levitation trick was show some reactions to say one of his card tricks to show peoples reactions. For the levetation he jumped up and down or from a small hight and they reversed and slowed this down during the editing to make it tlook like he slowly rises into the air and hovers there


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get it all together get like birds of a feather

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InvisibleLazerouth
Drunkard

Registered: 10/15/00
Posts: 1,091
Loc: England
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: Sole_Worthy]
    #1918134 - 09/15/03 12:49 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

yeah if you notice when it shows him fly up it only ever shows the backs of the spectators. its cuz they dress up actors for the crane shot.

most of his tricks are reeal shit like that.

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Anonymous

Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: trendal]
    #1918147 - 09/15/03 12:53 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

wait if hes on the balls of his feet how does it look like hes levitating? wouldnt it just look like he was tippy toeing?

i dont get it.

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InvisibletrendalM
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Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: ]
    #1918205 - 09/15/03 01:11 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Well the Balducci levitation is never done more than a couple inches off the ground, and only ONE foot is touching the ground. You rise up on the ball of one foot and keep the other completely off the ground and slightly towards the crowd. That way the foot in the air blocks the view of your other foot. The levitation is done only for a brief few seconds so that the shock doesn't wear off which would give the people time to look for your other foot.

The shots you see of his feet HIGH off the ground were staged wire levitations.


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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OfflineRastafari
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Registered: 01/29/03
Posts: 1,143
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: trendal]
    #1918737 - 09/15/03 04:13 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Balducci levitation is a great effect...

but they also have "gimicks" you can perchase which will allow you to levetate 12" off the ground...they are just that - gimicks...

my uncle has been a magician for 18 years, and he has invented alot of his own magic tricks.... a few of them I have seen at magic shops that he uses, and whatnot...but he has invented some tricks that are just plain magic...only he knows how to do them

he will make a marked half of a dollar bill (we mark it with different color pens) disapear infront of you, and right then the lightbulb above us flickers out...get down the hot bulb and break it open - its in there... (he invented this)...its not a trick lightbulb because after he left my grandparents they had to go into the basement and find a new lightbulb

or I remember when I was younger...he was up on a chair, he takes our half of a marked dollar bill (several colors, signed names...we kept hte other half of the bill- he says its very difficult to fake a tear)... and he makes it disapear into a hankercheif...still standing on the chair he says - go across the room and pick out any can of pinapple in the cupboard (there was about a dozen or two) and sure enough we open it up, its in there...he can do that with any egg in the fridge, a loaf a bread, a droor full of lemons

thats real magic right there....he says its illusion of course but what he does is really impossible!

I enjoy that type of stuff....

he was telling me david blain does this trick...and how he (david blaine) does it...is he has a friend standing on the inside of a restaurant window....when the person outside picks a card, the friend see's, and takes that card...and when david blaine throws the deck at the window, the person slaps it up on the inside...

my uncle can do that trick by himself, on the outside of a window in a house or a non opening window

this same uncle of mine knows alot about explosives and we've had some fun with contact explosives and bb guns!

ahh yeah fun fun fun


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I&I

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Offlinejahfeelirie
meatwad

Registered: 10/05/02
Posts: 535
Last seen: 6 days, 16 hours
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: Jellric]
    #1919504 - 09/15/03 08:03 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Jellric said:
Quote:

Isn't that one of Sclorch's old avatars?





Indeed it is.





hmm, ive had this thing forever. got it off superbad.com at least a year now


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InvisibleJellric
altered statesman

Registered: 11/07/98
Posts: 2,261
Loc: non-local
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1920045 - 09/15/03 10:34 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Yes, I've seen it in other places. It's an interesting one. BTW, what the heck is it??  :smile:


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InvisibleinfidelGOD
illusion

Registered: 04/18/02
Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: trendal]
    #1920209 - 09/15/03 11:40 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Hey don't be bashing David Blaine, he's a REAL magician.
he made Fiona Apple disappear .
really.

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InvisibletrendalM
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: infidelGOD]
    #1920875 - 09/16/03 08:11 AM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Oh I'm not bashing him! I am regularly amazed by his tricks  :smirk:

Leaning and pointing out how they were done isn't bashing him. It's showing interest  :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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OfflineHidingInPlainSight
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Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: jahfeelirie]
    #1920908 - 09/16/03 08:31 AM (20 years, 6 months ago)

lol i can actually levitate like david blane what LOOKS like about a foot above the ground. the trick is getting at the right angle where the people are viewing you from behind you and to the right. you put both feet together, and lift your right foot up, while just lifting your heel with the ball of your left foot. the right foot has to be off the ground, but at the right angle the viewers will not see that your left foot is actually still on the ground, creating the illusion that both feet are off, and you are floating. its a little harder said than done, but if you work at it you can do it. :smile: 

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Offlinejahfeelirie
meatwad

Registered: 10/05/02
Posts: 535
Last seen: 6 days, 16 hours
Re: David Blaine... Levitation? [Re: Jellric]
    #1922318 - 09/16/03 05:00 PM (20 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Jellric said:
Yes, I've seen it in other places. It's an interesting one. BTW, what the heck is it??  :smile: 





i dunno, but i love it hehe. hes got the ole' shifty eyes, kinda fitting for these forums sometimes :smile:

just go to www.superbad.com and have a look around, you'll find much more interesting things there. 


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