Magician Marco Tempest Talks 'Open Sorcery'

bLanark writes "The BBC have a piece about illusionist Marco Tempest who uses technology to generate magical illusions. As he says in the interview unlike most magicians and illusionists he shares his techniques in an act that he calls 'open sorcery.' The techniques include using iPhone apps, and high-speed digital cameras. There is a growing band of people using and contributing to the field."

Saw him on TED

[YurB]

He has two videos on TED, here's his TED profile [ted.com].

Already happens

[abigsmurf]

As a magic fan, it's incredibly annoying seeing so many street magicians using camera tricks. The whole point of street magicians is that you're not in a studio, you've limited avenues for preparation and you don't have control over your environment.

I blame people like David Blaine for popularising camera tricks, his 'hovering' trick is the worst. The actual trick is to position your feet in a way where the heel of the other foot blocks people's view of you standing on tiptoes on the other foot, giving the impression you're hovering a few inches off the ground. Neat trick but not impressive and it's very obvious what's happening when it's on camera. Knowing this, David then some point afterwards let himself lifted by a crane, got some actors to wear the same clothes as the people who were in the earlier trick and shot himself being lifted over their shoulders (wire was then CG'ed out). He spliced that footage with the people's reaction from the real trick and it gave the impression he genuinely performed an illusion where he hovered several metres off the ground in front of some random people.

Rule of thumb: if a street magician has any cuts in footage, something is up; there's only a single camera and he only gets one stab at a trick with a set of people, he shouldn't need to ever cut. Also, most "how did he know my birthday and get it in that passing bus?" trick almost always involved them having an interview when the camera isn't rolling or them having filled out a questionnaire beforehand.

Re:Already happens

[SuricouRaven]

The Masked Magician did one trick just to show this rule flawed: He made a tank disappear. Tank was there, he lowered a screen over it, waved hands, tank gone. It was a camera trick: Camera, screen and magician were all mounted on a moveable platform. While the screen was down the whole lot shifted position to point away from the tank.