You completely fail to see my point. In certain effects, we use recaps before the revelation to emphasize that what we did was impossible. We use subtle comments as well, and we use convincers.

We tell them that what we did is impossible, when in fact, any five year old can repeat the technical workings after reading through a magic text.

Most importantly we NEED to protect our secrets from laypeople.

And I would like to point out that there are several stage effects that Criss has done on television, that require the audience to be in specific places. So he uses stooges and camera editing to safely show viewers at home.

These are the same effects that are done in stage shows across the world. Does the stage magician have to have a caveat for his audience that although he is doing it live, it would not be a very magical show if they were sitting up higher, or to the sides of the stage or behind the stage?

[quote="wayno"][quote="Wildheart"]What’s more is his outrageous claim that “What you see is what you getâ€

so basically the show Mindfreak uses camera edits, but Criss doesn't do it himself

Every show uses camera edits. What Banachek was talking about is just the basic editing. Criss, on the other hand, being the director, is in control of the camera tricks that he uses. He does supervise that camera editing that is used to make the camera tricks.

My two cents:


I don't like Criss. But to be honest, I only watched a few episodes, and I was bored. The way he presented it, I actually thought it was a bad reality show fake, like Joe Schmoe. I remember thinking, there's no way anyone can be taking this crap seriously, the crowd reactions seemed so fake and staged, and the effects he presented could in no way be done impromptu without assistants.

I figured, this crap will only attract unintelligent teenagers who play video games all day long, and whose imaginations are dictated by MTV garbage. Little did I know.........

Anyhoo.....my point is this. In my circle of performances, with the crowds I deal with, I get little Angel references. The bit that I do is to the effect of, can you do ______ that Criss did on Mindfreak? I'll respond, nope, and move on, just letting it go. We can argue this and that about what he does or doesn't do, but his bottom line is his payday, and if what he does pays his bills and puts more green in his pocket than god, then so be it. Milk it for as long as you can, because fame is fleeting.

Ethical? Maybe. Maybe not.
Profitable? For him, absolutely.
Entertaining? For some, yes. Others, like me, no.
He can ram his head into a brick wall for all I care. End of the day, he's not taking any bread off of my table, nor is he providing for the care of my family in any way.

I'm done.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled squabble.

Which as I also said in many others posts, leads to a slew of unrealistic requests from layman. "Criss Angel said he can walk up a wall, walk on water, jump into a puddle and vanish, and disappear from under a garbage can and appear on top of a roof, all live and with no stooges; so let's see you do that. Oh you can't? Guess Criss is just a better magician than you are, that is why he is on TV."

When actually it is the exact opposite, Criss uses camera edits to cover up for a lack of skill. After I saw a lot of his poor palming, which in fact looked like he was hitchhiking for a ride; I said to myself "stick to the camera edits, I see now why you use them so frequently.

Heh. That's going to happen regardless. And not just to children.

I remember a few years back on I think the alt.magic usenet group. A father was pissed that he purchased some "David Blaine tricks" Either Raven, Healed and Sealed, Balducci levitation or some other. He was pissed at the secrets.

I found it very humorous because I can't imagine what he was expecting to receive for his kid. A book of spells or something??? Heh.

You want to see clever editing and stooges in television magic? Check this one out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKyuU82d2BM

But it's still darn entertaining.

Yeah - that segment with Peter Marvy is almost Criminal! He's about as guilty as Criss Angel!