Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/01/watch-mind-blowing-close-up.html
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Lets face it… there is such a thing as magic and this kids knows how to do it…He’s great and his personality is even better!
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Well I am 90% sure I know how this was done. Its a new twist and classic slight of hand.
[spoiler]I am pretty sure he is doing this trick on a large tablet. Like one of those Wacom ones or some other large touch screen. Note it isn’t just a table, it uses a picture frame to hide the fact that its a tablet/screen.
Part of it was classic slight of hand tricks. But when he “showed” the jump was when it clicked that its a screen. Had he not done that… So the visible jumps and coins to petals were just on the screen, and the slight of hand to pluck them off the table.
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Still - great overall effect. I miss having free Hulu for this show alone.
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Full 7 minutes, including intro, performance and then, the comments from the judges: https://youtu.be/gVYogiVtIRE
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Thanks - figured it out. Just slow… and the google searches had bad info.
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It is not a touch screen as you suggested. Coins on a touch screen don’t reflect the surroundings. The coins he used were real coins. This illusion is created with something else than a touch screen. I really don’t care how it is done, it was a beautiful illusion regardless.
[spoiler]Doesn’t HAVE to be a touch screen, and possibly uses something that either didn’t give a reflection, or more likely, not when filmed at the angle it was. Real coins were mixed in with digital ones.
MOST close up magic guys go to the judges table. I am guessing he didn’t and was filmed form one angle to keep up the illusion.
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You’re correct.
After he did the finger snap thing it became too obvious, so I had to stop watching.
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Agreed, up till that point i would have believed that he was physically manipulating them, and was incredibly skilful at it.
Seeing them jump all by themselves took away any wonder i had about the earlier parts of the trick.
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I still enjoyed the presentation but I agree. I would have enjoyed it more if it looked NEARLY impossible to do with slight of hand rather than outright impossible.
I think it would have been smarter to make us wonder how it was all slight of hand instead of showing that it obviously wasn’t.
Edited the next day: After watching again a couple of times today, I take that back! After the initial disappointment of realizing it’s not all slight of hand, the showmanship is fantastic and he really takes a trick you’ve seen a million times and turns it into something you’ve NEVER seen before. This is really great.
(I had 11 likes when I said I would have liked it more the other way, so any additional likes are for the new outlook! =o)
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This.
BUT - it was still entertaining. Especially for people who don’t analyze ever god damn thing they come across…
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I doubt its a tablet screen of some sort. I think what he’s doing is using a table that has a very black color,
just about no light is reflected off it it. This helps hide small patches of the same material that are already present and covering hidden coins. Make a coin disappear? Cover it with a new patch! Make a coin appear? Remove the patch on top of it! In fact, if you look frame by frame, there are a couple of moments when coins (or sometimes even parts of a coin) are “missing”, and that’s when he is manipulating the hidden coverings. The flower petal finale uses the same technique. I agree with previous posters though, coins popping in/out of existence in plain view kind of ruins it for me.
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That’s my guess, too. A black velvet table lit just right will basically be invisible; gently swiping a hand over a little lever will flip it and unveil the new coin, blank area, or rose petal. But I agree that making things literally appear with a finger-snap immediately tells me “this is fake. It’s not skill. It’s simply a gimmick. So figure out the gimmick, smart guy.”
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There are other videos of Will Tsai doing tricks on youtube. Several short demos of tricks he has developed that are available for sale from magic vendors, and then this 10 minute appearance on a Hong Kong TV show (english subtitled). Starts out looking like simple gimmickry using a static electricity generator, then gets a lot more impressive towards the end:
eta, found another one that isn’t selling a specific trick but more advertising himself and his skills.
A skillful blend of gimmicky and sleight of hand can be far more awesome and impressive than either alone. Looking over the various tricks of his for sale on youtube, and it’s clear this guy is a multifaceted and multitalented magician. I’ll be looking forward to see what he does on his future AGT appearances.
nb: search for Will Tsai Magic, and then patiently scroll down past the AGT videos. He doesn’t have a youtube channel of his own (that I found), but sells tricks through at least two different magic vendors who do have youtube channels…
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Well, this guy does actual magic. I think he is a literal wizard.
At around 4:40 in this video he makes a big loaf of bread appear out of nowhere.
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Why the hell is he speaking Chinese? He lives in Canada, he should speak Canadian, goddammit.
/s
I wouldn’t be so sure. Notice the table isn’t dark. It’s black, yes, but quite well lit. His hands don’t appear to cast shadows over the table, but they do cast shadows over the coins. The supposed reflective properties of the coins could be part of the video playing. Obviously it would require insanely good timing to sync up the hand movements with the video, but that’s what makes it a good performance.
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I live in Toronto, where the official language is a sheet of paper with half a dozen or more unlabeled translations into languages you can have fun trying to identify.
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I agree that it was entertaining, but I figured the point of close up magic was to be analyzed. We all know it’s not magic, but what makes it fun is looking for where the palm is. When you put your best into trying to work out what the trick is, and still can’t find it, that’s when it gets impressive. Same thing with misdirection. The best magicians I’ve seen are the ones charismatic enough that, no matter how on guard you were, you don’t realize they were distracting you until just after it’s too late.
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