Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/12/allow-one-of-the-worlds-grea.html
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This is legit amazing.
Potential spoiler:
As does his assistant pulling things under the table. Not his fault YouTube has frame-by-frame progression.
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That was simply amazing!
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Yeah unfortunately video kills a lot of these tricks, however, until it got to that point, about midway through, I hadn’t seen anything I didn’t already know how to do (not to be confused with “I can do it”, because I can’t, but I knew how it was done). I had to slow stuff down from then on to be sure. He’s very good.
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After you’ve watched it through once, watch it back again but instead of watching the hand that’s doing something, watch the other one instead. You can see the slight of hand setups his constant, steady stream of misdirection block.
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a shit-ton of showmanship
Having grown up on Doug Henning and David Copperfield, and seeing a bit of current magicians like Criss Angel, I prefer they dial it back a shit-ton.
Now I have this annoying image of Chien looking astonished at the most mundane of things, like eating cornflakes. “Where did they go?”
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I tried to do that in a few spots. If I didn’t know better I would think this had some digital help in a few places. There are several people who do this sort of thing, mixing illusion with digital effects. But since this was live, I think it is ruled out. Most of it is expert slight of hand, but a few of it just seems like voodoo. The vest change and ribbon disappear I figured was something yanking stuff away.
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It looks like there’s slits in the table fabric through which some of the cards and coins are being slid. I also assume some of the cards are doubles to achieve the color changes. And yeah, he wears a layered vest. If you go frame by frame you can see it being pulled under the table. Still damn freaking impressive sleight of hand though. And of course you’d never be able to see the stuff getting pulled under if you were there in person.
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I still don’t get how he did the appearing card-frames at the beginning. It looks like a video edit.
I’d watch that video.
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Yeah, they vanish from his hand in one frame and are just on the table in the next frame (at least at YouTube’s 60 FPS streaming rate). It does indeed look like an edit. It’s hard to imagine the FISM Grand Prix would be given for a trick involving video editing, but it looks a lot like a video edit.
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Yeah, I found it distracting with how the table just looked a little off. Probably made worse by video compression and viewing 1080p60 full screen on a big high res monitor.
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By extremely slowing the video down to individual frames, you’ll see that some of the tricks are video manipulations. Meaning, stopping the action > changing the props > starting the video. In other words, fake! But then, many modern magicians have said that “fooling the audience to believe it is real…is the real trick!” >.<
Review the videos on YouTube of more fakes. Wingsuit skydiving and landing in a lake without a parachute = Fake! Mixing Mountain Dew soda with “ingredients” results in glow sticks = Fake! Search YouTube for Fake Viral Videos. Magic!
TQQdles™
Genuinely amazing. If I was going to guess I’d say some very very good palming technique combined with some cool equipment. The appearing frames on the table look like they’re folded in two. I’d say they pop out of the table on a spring or something. Also the ribbon looks magnetic at one point which is how I think he did the halfway disappearing card. The ribbon attaches to a loose bit of cloth on the table and covers it. How they made it look so seamless is mindblowing!
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That was amazing! 
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Yeah that part was the most eye brow raising for me.
There was a guy who did something similar with a coin trick, and it was surmised that it was done with a large tablet and some times the coins were not real coins but coins on a screen.
That table looked like real felt, but maybe it wasn’t. It would explain some things like how they just popped up, and I did notice there was a spec of white INSIDE the right frame that also just popped up. Then it is a matter of slight of hand to “pluck” the real frames up and place them back down.
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Tables that can flip items on and off a the black surface really quickly exist. There certainly are a lot of visual effects hoaxes on YouTube, but there are hybrids where tricks that legitimately fool people in person are touched up so they don’t fall apart on video.
Here’s a Captain Disillusion video on a trick that likely uses a similar mechanical effect to make some items appear and disappear on a black table, and the subsequent video touch up that America’s Got Talent apparently conspired to add to keep the trick from falling apart when viewed on television.
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He’s got a monitor to the side, showing a close-up view for the audience, so it’s possible that any editing was done in the live show somehow (with the monitor showing a combination of live and altered video) that is also what we’re seeing. That would make any editing a trick that’s part of the performance, so I could see it being prize-worthy.
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Calling Captain Dissilusion!
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I hadn’t noticed the white speck before. That is curious. One bit of evidence I think supports KatjaKat’s theory is that there appears to be a suspicious crease in the table squares as though they’re mounted on a spring-loaded or motorized hinge embedded in the table. Possibly when they’re closed black felt on the backside conceals them, allowing them to appear and vanish at the push of a button. Or maybe it is a custom shaped display embedded inside the table. The table itself looks like textured felt, but more than that, I think parts of the felt lift up to hide stuff.
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