Bashing anyones form of "art" in my opinion, is very disrespectful to their creativity. Magicians ALL CHEAT in order to accomplish an "effect". As far as Criss Angel goes, he is just using "reality tv" as a leeway to make his effects look BETTER than they do "live" and in person. And don't tell me that "reality tv" does not use stooges... it gives him an excuse to use them and he may overuse them but a career is on the line (not only him but everyone else who profits from him) and he always needs to get NEW(nobody wants to see the same old tricks hes already done) material/tricks for every season of the show.... (remember he NEEDS to out-do his last biggest effect to KEEP VIEWERS)talk about PRESSURE!!...i say give him a break and get off his back.

he maby yousing camera trick's but the peolpe that's looking at on television is acturs. if oyur doing a trick your not asking if we have met before. lol

the reason for asking is so the tv "viewers" understand....not all performers have a camera crew with them.

My thoughts on camera tricks and stooges are as follows: the steroid analogy is very good. The idea that the video footage is complete and no-one other than the magician (and any assistants presented) is part of the trick is a given. Therefore I think that it is ethically wrong to abuse this magician-spectator trust.

Obviously there are exceptions. Whereas cameras can be used to explicitly lie (i.e. using cuts) they can also be used not to give the entire truth (i.e. by pointing the camera towards/away from a particular something). Since the latter example technically isn't lying, it is acceptable in my books.

There are also exceptions when it comes to stooges. If the stooge does not know how the trick is done (e.g. they were part of some pre-show work) then that's okay. That's not using a full-on stooge. Another example of a trick with stooges involved some psychic surgery at a live show. Since most people would have severe objections to getting stage blood splattered all over their clothes a stooge was used as the "randomly chosen" patient.

Thats lame, but phsychic surgery is a lame idea anyway, I never believed that crap even before I got into magic. I always knew it was fake along with phsychics in general. And I feel the same way about edits, they're lame, therefore Angel is lame for using them. Blaine has done just fine without them..

PEOPLE!..... you *THINK* he uses camera tricks because you *DON'T* know how his art is done. Ex: His card thru window trick- learned it from my friends in 7th grade (and I'm now in 9th grade and still performing it ocassionally; His levitations - (from building to building)- obviously no one can actually *float from building to building* , not only that but I know someone from a diff. magic talk web site and said that his *BROTHER* was leaving when he saw a shadow......... he looked up and.... there was criss performing the illusion. Therefore Criss must use a *gimmick* of *SOME SORT* just like in (Criss Angel's Self- Levitation)- I already *know* how half the trick works and am thinking about just buying the the darn thing, that or my parents might get it for me for Christmas.

...................... ............ Now that i'm calmed down, I just wanted to say if you don't know *FOR SURE* either: 1) find a site where you can buy the illusion you saw him do
2) Talk to someone who *ISN'T* gossuping on the illusion and talk to someone who *BOUGHT * the illusion or someone who has *PROOF* that they know what they're talking about

Ha thats funny you used his building to building levitation as an example of something that we don't "know" how its done and just say its a camera trick. I happened to have watched that until I realized how it was done, and it is indeed very much so a camera trick, and nothing can convince me otherwise unless I see it in person because the method I think he used would look almost exactly the same as what he did. I won't say what I am thinking he did, but it would look the same, I noticed something he would need at least twice in the background, the one area that is never shown is where the "gimmick" if you want to call it that would be located, and he is in an area where it would be possible for him to do the method that I think he used.

And I am not just talking about that I know that there are you know whats involved, that is kind of given, I'm saying I know the camera trick's method that he used. Watch the video, think about the area not shown, watch the background, and watch the path he follows and put it all together and I'm sure you can figure out something that would at least be possible to do if it is not what he did.

And I don't recall anyone saying the card through window was edited, but its possible, or the lighting might have gave the appearance that the card wasn't there, or something else could have been done. Overall I don't think its edited really.


Also I get sick of being accussed of being jealous of angel (i dont think you said that though) and of accusing angel of camera tricks just because I don't know how the effect was done. I'll give an example that proves what I just said, a while back when the sawed in half episode aired I said that I thought it might have been edited or a camera trick to do it surrounded and closeup the way he showed it, but then I said I wasn't sure about it though because I really didn't have a clue how it was performed therefore there might not be any editing or camera trickery involved. Well now I know a little more about it, and I think its a lot less likely that editing or camera trickery was involved. So I had decided not to say it was a camera trick back then because I DID NOT KNOW SO I DIDN'T ACCUSE. If I say something is probably a camera trick then I have a theory in my head about how the trick was done, and therefore reason to say that. If I don't know I don't talk about how, I just say what I think about it like if its good or not. So please don't say people like me just cry camera tricks when we don't know a trick.

wow...that was sad.

just watch the building float it just looks fake to me..... then again i have never seen it in person so mabey that is what it really looks like.

criss angel does tricks that other people do and it seems hes trying to beat them in some way.He copies Cyril takayama a bunch.
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Your comment about the CTW is interesting. Especially since, someone posted here who talked to a person on the bus; they said it was faked.

The thing is, we do know how the effects are done, and we know they can't be done how he does them. Simple Example: his levitation cannot be done surrounded, but the people from the exposed view smiled, clapped, and cheered anyway.

To be fair, there are several effects that I considered impossible before picking up some things by Dustin Baker and Andrew Mayne. I suppose Angel could have a total genious making a few of his effects for him (Sankey is signed up for the third season), but some of the stuff is completley faked.

Okay People... I really don't think he uses camera tricks for his tricks unless they are specifically being performed for the camera. When he's performing for an audience, yes I'm sure he has accomplices everywhere. Is that bad?? I dunno. He is always performing the trick for somebody live. And finally, It's a TV show. If he cheats on his TV show, he's doing it because some producer told him it would get him better ratings. In Television, that's what matters. If he impresses a live audience and he impresses a television audience, then he is not a total fraud, he is an entertainer. There's nothing wrong with that.