It takes a lot to surprise David Berglas ...

[CraigMitchell]

It takes a lot to surprise David Berglas - but they did just that at the International Magic Convention.

The recipient of the Berglas Award was ostensibly Dynamo ... But in a wonderful piece of misdirection - the true recipient was in fact David himself!



A beautiful touch indeed to the true man of mystery. Congrats, David!

Photos - Peter McLanachan

http://instagram.com/p/veCd7hskdu/

[Joe Mckay]

That is a wonderful surprise.

David Berglas is a living legend.

Mind - I am surprised he would ever agree to give the award to Dynamo. Since Dynamo is not really a magician. He just plays one on TV.

[Richard Kaufman]

David was genuinely surprised--he had no idea. You don't often catch Berglas off guard!

[CraigMitchell]

[El Mystico]

Joe:
You say "Dynamo is not really a magician. He just plays one on TV."
I suspect you are referencing Robert-Houdin's line, "The conjurer is an actor playing the part of a magician."
In which case, surely you'd agree that Dynamo fits Robert-Houdin's description.

Recently I've been pondering this question.

Particularly with the UK show "Mind Games" with Katherine Mills; which boasts no stooges or camera tricks. Yet capitalises on possibilities not available to us 'live' performers. Should TV performers use only those techniques available to the live performers?
I'm sure Robert-Houdin made use of all the possibilities of his performing environment.

So - are we calling foul just because we can't duplicate Dynamo's tricks?

On the other hand: my sister is a careers advisor. She asked me recently about a teenager who wanted to become a magician. On further investigation, he wanted to be 'like Dynamo'. That worried me.

HOWEVER - I'm delighted Berglas got the award. Well deserved.

And - I'm fascinated to see how Dynamo's live tour of big venues gets reviewed.

[Matthew Field]

Just returned back home to Hastings from a fabulous weekend at the International Magic Convention in London, under the aegis of the MacMillan family. It was wonderful seeing Tom Mullica returning to magic after many years.

But nothing could be better than seeing David Berglas being surprized by his receipt of the Berglas Award. After the Gala show which ended around 10 PM, many of us went to the bar in the Mermaid Centre which overlooks the Thames. I was there with the Head Genii, and Richard returns to the U.S. tomorrow, I believe. When I left, after midnight and many conversations with Jim Steinmeyer, Frankie Glass and Chris Power, Mr. Kaufman was deep in conversation with Mr. Berglas and his wife Ruth, two people I am proud to call my friends.

Noel Britten put on a great convention, and the 5-day long Festival of Magic which preceeded.

Matt Field

[Brad Henderson]

magic consists of performing extraordinary feats in ordinary environments.

the ordinary environment is the troubling condition for magicians like dynamo. while the viewing audience and their TV are ordinary environments, the locations in which the magic is happening seldom are. Sometimes the extraordinary feat isn't extraordinary at all at the time of filming.

Would houdin have considered a magcian in a melies film an actor playing the role of a magician, or an actor playing the role of an actor playing a magician?

[Tom Moore]

A rare moment when i have to disagree with you there

magic consists of performing extraordinary feats in ordinary environments.

it should be "in apparently ordinary environments" - the world of stage magic and illusions (in fact just about every genre of magic apart from table-hopping style close-up) is built almost entirely on vast quantities of mechanisms, procedures and preparations all hidden to make everything seem normal. I'd argue that someone like Robert Houdan would consider Dynamo's shows to be equal to his own (at least on a technial performance level, not on an inventor/creator level) simply because they both relied on phenominal amounts of preparation, planning and deception which is kept secret from the ultimate viewing audience. Houdan used stooges, had whole sections of the stage or performance space rebuilt and had people working "just out of sight" of the audience whilst actually using very little manipulative or technical skill of his own in the actual performance.

[Brad Henderson]

I would be willing to explore this disagreement. I do not discount the idea that elements of deception can be placed into an ordinary environment. But to me the problem becomes delineating the difference between the conditions of magic as it is thought of as a performing art from those of, say, Star Wars.

both create illusions. Both, when done well, convey emotions and hit the other tick marks usually associated with 'art'. But I think we would agree that the special effects in Star Wars do NOT constitute a magic show.

it seems then that one difference is that, at some level, the environment of the magic show is considered to be ordinary. perhaps the question, then, is by whom? or to what degree?

If there is no differentiation then the antics of Jim Carey's character in Burt wonderstone are no different from those if criss angel. At what point does using a stooge criss the line from magic technique to negating the experience of magic and transforming the product from magic show to movie magic?

Inherent in the experience of magic as a theatrical art (especially when viewed on TV )seems to be the condition that the experience of those people in the audience is identical to those at home - that the audience represents the home viewer and validates the normalcy of the environment.

there is clearly sometbing different in an audiences experience of Star Wars special effects and a magic show, either live or filmed. what do you think the audience brings, expectation wise, to the experience of the two? What is different?

[Tom Moore]

The idea that what the audience at home sees is exactly the same as what the people the other side of the camera sees is an incredibly modern and niche one (an ethos essentially pioneered by Ali Bongo for Paul Daniels in the uk & Doug Henning's team in the USA) prior to them and since it's been entirely common and normal that "camera tricks" were utilised by "magicians" on tv- not saying I agree with it but just emphasising that the very notion that magic on Tv should be identical to the experience of the live performance is not representative of how the vast bulk of magic has been presented on tv ever.

There's a delicious irony that we're arguing this point in a thread about David Berglas in that some of his most famous performances / stunts (to the public) have actually been closer to being camera tricks and dynamo style set-ups than the ultra-realistic, genuine magic performance style craved. Again whilst on a technical level David & Dynamo are in completely different leagues when it comes down to showmanship, self promotion and embracing every tool the medium of TV offers they are not a million miles apart either. Whilst i personally wouldn't have chosen dynamo I don't think he is as much of a curve-ball recipient or unworthy recipient as others have implied.

[erdnasephile]

Cool surprise!

In normal years, does Mr. Berglas have final say over who gets the award named after him?

[observer]

The idea that what the audience at home sees is exactly the same as what the people the other side of the camera sees is an incredibly modern and niche one (an ethos essentially pioneered by Ali Bongo for Paul Daniels in the uk & Doug Henning's team in the USA) prior to them and since it's been entirely common and normal that "camera tricks" were utilised by "magicians" on tv-

Absolutely not true at all. "No camera tricks!" goes back at least to Mark Wison's Allakazam show (1960-64), and it has been a basic principle of televised magic ever since. What's modern and niche are silly obvious camera-dependent things like the Vanishing Statue of Liberty.

[Q. Kumber]

Neither Chan Canasta nor David Nixon used camera tricks to perform their magic.

I did see a couple of Nixon clips that were obviously camera tricks but meant to look like camera tricks.

Ali Bongo as magical advisor would not have had the clout to insist on "no camera tricks".

[Brad Henderson]

one might argue that magic on television failed to take hold until the viewing audience began to accept the idea that the experience in screen would be the same as theirs.

Regardless, I don't think anyone watching televised magic pre wilson/henning/bongo would have created a theatrical equivalence between that which was presented as magic and the illusions produced by the special effects department of a Hollywood movie lot.

When it is revealed that criss angel is using camera tricks, all 'value' of the performance is lost. It ceases to be that which it claims to be ie magic.

When it is revealed that Star Wars is using camera tricks, no value is lost. No one previously would have confused it for magic with or without that knowledge.

This suggests that there are certain condition inherent in the experience of a performance as magic as opposed to merely special effects.

The belief that the audiences experience live is the same as those watching via tape seems to be one of those elements. Are their practical examples to contradict this?

appreciate your engagement on this topic.

[Tom Moore]

Ali Bongo as magical advisor would not have had the clout to insist on "no camera tricks".

Ali was never "just" magical advisor, he achieved a level of fame and professional respect amongst the TV world that was unmatched. For the record, he would literally stand in the box next to the director screaming at them to stop them using camera tricks or anything that to a lay audience would look remotely like camera tricks in the PD shows.

Go look up clips of Dante, Kalanag & all the "greats" and you'll find from the outset magicians have been using all sorts of camera tricks when performing on Tv or film.

I think we do have some terminology issues here - camera tricks are being compared to hollywood special effects / composites / picture-in-picture / greenscreen style effects (none of which dynamo, angel etc actively use) but the stuff they are criticised for (off screen preshow work, stuff happening just out of shot, actors pretending to be punters, repeated takes, building whole fake sections of buildings and filming them to imply they're real and the live witness's think they're real) are all tools that were actively used in the past & actively used in recent times. It's a much much shorter list of magicians who regularly appeared on TV who presented magic "as live" than the list of magicians who embraced the medium and used some or all of the above techniques.

Again for the record my own style is to go for "as live" but look at the thousands of hours of TV filmed magic performances and you will find this is a relatively modern and minority presentation style.

[Brad Henderson]

there is evidence to suggest angel has used post production editing techniques in his work.

When the live audience sees him standing on a platform which is edited out later does one cross the line I using shots of that audience to reinforce the notion that something happened which didn't? When they show reaction shots of an audience watching one trick inserted into shots of another trick, is that crossing a line?

if the viewing audience knew that it wasn't the same audience or that something was edited out the notion of magic is gone

BUT if the audience knew that a trapdoor was used, while the feeling of magic may be gone, the notion of magic remains. Meaning, audiences expect deception but not all types of deception. There must be some core condition which seperates the notion of magic from the notion of Star Wars. (and did audiences watching Dante et all consider those filmed clips magic or camera tricks? what would a modern audience think on seeing them? Is it not true that many felt magic didn't 'work' on TV until the 'as live' conceit was adopted?)

the best I have been able to verbalize it is in terms of conditions. The audience expects the filmed magician to be performing extraordinary things in an ordinary environment - if they think everyone in screen is in on it all is lost. that's not 'real magic' as some laymen I know have said about criss. Sleight if hand and tricky boxes would still be real magic to them- even with a trick in play.

can we distill this to an essence (in hopes it reveals something about our audiences expectations which we can then build on)?

[Richard Kaufman]

there is evidence to suggest angel has used post production editing techniques in his work.

Ya think?