Army of 52 Gaff by Justin Miller

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Esquire staffers learn card trick from Blaine

Fresh on the tails of yesterday’s Esquire pic, Dodd Vickers of Magic Newswire spotted this video of David Blaine teaching a magic trick to staff at Esquire magazine. Blaine has taught a few tricks before, but this is the best explanation of a trick he performs that we’ve seen. 

The vid is pretty cool, and presents an interesting trick, but if you watch all the way through the end (there’s some outtakes attached) and look at the related videos, you can find a few more performances for the staff. Good stuff.

 

source : ellusionist.com Selengkapnya...

David Blaine For Esquire

“It’s not going to work!” Thats the first thing David Blaine said to me when he walked into the studio. After explaining our plan and showing him how prepared we were, he then proclaimed that it would take 5 tries to get it right. Let’s just say that David has a “strong personality” and I had to use every trick in the photographic Jujitsu playbook to make it through the day. It’s incredibly physically demanding to hang upside down and I do have to give it to David for delivering a command performance. He did end up inverting 5 times but we actually got the winning shot on the 3rd time upside down. The whole team did a great job, including photo editor Alison Unterreiner, set builder Jesse Nemeth and you can see stylist Wendell T Brown in the BTS photo below. Of course the shoot wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Michael Norseng’s brilliant concept! After the shoot David gathered the crew around and performed some of the most amazing card tricks I have ever seen. Literally cards disappeared right in front of my eyes. That was some serious Magic!

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Blaine’s upside-down efforts assist with picture

Photographer Michael Lavine (who has an incredible portfolio) has posted some interesting commentary about a recent pic of David Blaine for Esquire magazine.

The street magic legend was photographed upside-down in order to snag this incredible shot (click after the jump to see the full image). Lavine wrote in his blog that at first Blaine didn’t think the idea would work, but after seeing the setup and preparation, said the shot could be done in five tries. Writes Lavine:

Let’s just say that David has a “strong personality” and I had to use every trick in the photographic Jujitsu playbook to make it through the day. It’s incredibly physically demanding to hang upside down and I do have to give it to David for delivering a command performance.

It did take five tries, although the money shot happened on the third. Afterward, Blaine blew their minds with a few card tricks. Blaine earned his reputation for hanging upside-down during 2008’s Dive of Death.
 

 

source : ellusionist.com

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Blaine joins Angel, Alonzo as magic kit-selling sellouts? Not quite

We’re going to pre-emptively snuff a spark before an issue becomes a fire — now that David Blaine is involved, this issue is likely to get debates going on magic forums worldwide.

Surely, you’ve seen the Mindfreak magic kits. Available from the ads on TV and from nationwide retailers, the kits feature a slew of street magic effects for beginners, intermediates and the “most advanced mystifier,” including several we are all familiar with. You can get “platinum” and “ultimate” kits — some include one of Angel’s levitations, and the kits also come with instructional DVDs. 

Also causing some controversy is this kit featuring Ed Alonzo.tantamount to exposure. Roland Henning, the chief of Weekly Magic Failure, goes a step further and calls Alonzo a sell out.gets angry when we don’t send him free cards, but we still like him and his site.) Some, including About.com’s respected resident magician Wayne Kawamoto, have argued that the kit’s head twister is so poorly made that it is (Yeah, Roland 

Now David Blaine is getting involved. MagicTimes.com in September spread the news that the street magic legend is releasing three new gaff decks. The decks are Blaine’s take on a stripper, Svengali and marked deck, but the key words in the story: “They are U.S. Playing Card Co. products that are being released to the general public.” Blaine has a publicity tour planned to talk about the decks, and they should be available sometime after Oct. 31 wherever Bicycle cards are sold.

So is the world falling apart for magicians? Does the appearance of magic’s biggest current stars on products meant for the masses mean we will have no secrets left? Are Blaine, Angel and Alonzo SELL-OUTS? Chill. Take a deep breath, practice your pass. Take these two bullet points, and call us in the morning:

• All these kits appear to be filled with gimmicked magic tricks that have been in mass markets for ages. Take that Mindfreak kit: From the sales page, it looks like he’s put his presentational feel on effects that my stepkid already has. The serious secrets of sleight of hand appear to remain intact.
• But even if one of those 500 Mindfreaks happens to be a solid technique for a pass, remember: People like to watch US, not magic tricks. Even though these gimmicked decks have been available in mass markets, we know pros who still kill with them because they put the work, effort and practice into a truly convincing performance. The same goes for sleight of hand.

This won’t be the last time a magician makes it big enough to use his image to market magic products. Magic has been just fine ever since. So get out there and perform already. That’s what people want to see. 

 

source : ellusionist.com

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