Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Discuss your favorite platform magic and illusions.
Guest

Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 10th, 2004, 9:03 pm

Copperfield does a routine in his show in which he performs a trick with a duck, then offers a slow motion explanation of it. Chris Kenner comes out, acting in slo-mo, to do 'the dirty work'. It gets huge laughs, then fools everyone.

Is this his premise? Who's is it? Has it been published?

Thanks,

Dan

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 11th, 2004, 7:01 am

The first time I saw that idea, it was used by Jeff Justice doing a silk through microphone stand effect. As a matter of fact, it was on the Alan Thicke tv show and Copperfield was the slow motion guy. Most likely, that is how Copperfield came upon the routine.

Frank Yuen

User avatar
Pete Biro
Posts: 7124
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: Hollyweird
Contact:

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Pete Biro » November 11th, 2004, 4:45 pm

I did a SLO=MOTION comedy unlinking ring routine in the early '70s inspired by friends in a comedy sketch that showed an instant replay of a fight in slow motion.

I think the premise goes back a loooooooooong way. :p
Stay tooned.

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 11th, 2004, 5:43 pm

I do the slo-mo explaination with Jim Steinmeyer's
Apples and Oranges.

I don't know how he feels about that ending but it is definitely a highlight of my stand-up show.

I use a CEO or whoever is appropriate to do the slo-mo part.

I also play 'Slow Ride' by Foghat (quite loudly) during that part.

It goes over very well, in my opinion.

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 12th, 2004, 9:47 am

Originally posted by Dan Trommater:
...Is this his premise? Who's is it? Has it been published?
Think back to the 1970s and the almost iconic images from the TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man". All those slow motion shots and that music. Two snipits of music also come to mind that were played often with those slow motion shots.

Anyone got an earlier image to cite?

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 12th, 2004, 10:45 am

Sam Peckinpah's The wild Bunch (1969) is often credited with making the use of slow-motion footage (which is almost as old as movies themselves) a standard part of the visual vocabulary of film.

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 12th, 2004, 11:53 am

Originally posted by Pete McCabe:
... a standard part of the visual vocabulary of film.
I recall an episode of Star Trek titled Wink of an Eye where most of the action takes place in an accelerated frame where the viewer watches the actors moving in regular time as the rest of the world is moving VERY SLOWLY. There are a handful of scenes where the accelerated and normal speed frames interact, where the audience view is shifted from one frame to the other with the characters.

Where else is this technique of offering the viewer an accelerated frame offered in film/TV before this?

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 12th, 2004, 5:08 pm

I think something like this happend in "The Wild Wild West" TV show where they moved very fast and everyone else moved slowly.

Also, there was a Twilight Zone called "The Stopwatch". When the watch was stopped, everything, except you, would stand still. So you could rob banks and stuff.
Until the watch broke (oops) and now you have all the money but everything is stopped permenantly.

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 12th, 2004, 9:01 pm

Great stuff gang. It's interesting to see where the discussion leads when the question is vaguely (read 'poorly') stated.

I was specifically referring to the premise of a trick being performed once and then again in slow-mo with someone coming out as though they were the secret of the trick and the audience didn't see him because it happened so fast.

Any more ideas on the history of that? Also, is it public domain or is it someone's bit and shouldn't be performed?

Dan

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » November 12th, 2004, 11:31 pm

My post above was in terms of the specific effect you are looking for. Again, I believe it was Jeff Justice who came up with the bit and that was where David Copperfield learned of it. Justice even used the Chariots of Fire theme that Copperfield ended up using.

Frank Yuen

Guest

Re: Slo-Mo "Explaination" Credit?

Postby Guest » December 22nd, 2004, 3:46 am

Slo- mo most likely dates back to the early 1820s with the advent of the silent white face mime with Jean-Gaspard Deburau. Mime eventually progressed with the work of Jacques Copeau followed by Etienne Decroux the father of modern mime, and known as the teacher of Marcel Marceau.


Return to “Platform & Stage Magic”