Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Discussions of new films, books, television shows, and media indirectly related to magic and magicians. For example, there may be a book on mnemonics or theatrical technique we should know or at least know about.
Daniel Z
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Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Daniel Z » August 9th, 2017, 8:33 pm


performer
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby performer » August 9th, 2017, 9:29 pm

That's all we need.............................

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erdnasephile
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby erdnasephile » August 10th, 2017, 12:00 am

I'm not sure who the intended audience is for these types of presentations.

Do they really help non-magicians appreciate magic more? Does it lead them to hire more magicians to entertain them?

performer
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby performer » August 10th, 2017, 8:27 am

A grizzled old pro I know who is even older than me said to me a couple of weeks ago that magic as we know it will be dead within 10 years with all this internet exposure and too easy access to information which is supposed to be secret. I thought he was being overly pessimistic but sometimes I wonder...............................

Orson Welles foresaw all this in 1947. He was right.

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby MagicbyAlfred » August 10th, 2017, 11:24 am

I was shocked to learn, when I looked it up today that the world's population has almost tripled since 1947 and Orson Wells' prophesy. That titanically increases the odds that there will be spoilers out there, exposing secrets of magic. They are probably of the same people who gleefully told their little brothers and sisters that there is no Santa Claus and reveled in the ensuing tears of disappointment and disillusionment. Through counseling I have overcome the trauma of learning there is no Santa, but no one will ever convince me - EVER - that there is no Easter Bunny!

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby brianarudolph » August 10th, 2017, 7:53 pm

The digital world and its audiences have an insatiable appetite for content that grows exponentially. And people absolutely love being let in on (or think they're being let in on) "secrets" be they of magic tricks or anything else. Guess how many clicks an article or video would get if you promised to reveal how to make KFC's original recipe chicken at home or just had the list of ingredients in Coca Cola's formula? (Both continue to recur in the media from time to time.)

And the most brilliant title ever (at least from a marketing perspective) for a book was The Secret. The "secret" it revealed had been around for ages, but after the content was shined and polished and that title was slapped on the cover it became quite the lucrative release.

So unfortunately magic is going to increasingly become the target for such pieces because access to magic secrets is so easy and people can't resist the urge to be let in on something "secret."

Brad Henderson
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Brad Henderson » August 10th, 2017, 8:45 pm

you can expose the methods, not the secrets.

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby observer » August 11th, 2017, 1:20 am

I watched the "Stunt coordinator breaks down 'Atomic Blonde' fight scene" video (second row down on the linked page).

Did it spoil the movie for me?

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby brianarudolph » August 11th, 2017, 7:41 am

Unfortunately in the minds of those who are the target consumers for this kind of content (and even more unfortunately in the minds of most of the producers of this kind of content) methods = secrets.

Brad Henderson
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Brad Henderson » August 11th, 2017, 9:22 am

which means they are looking in the wrong place. these are not the secrets of magic. these are merely methods.

Brad Henderson
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Brad Henderson » August 11th, 2017, 9:24 am

observer wrote:I watched the "Stunt coordinator breaks down 'Atomic Blonde' fight scene" video (second row down on the linked page).

Did it spoil the movie for me?


but magic isn't the movies. two different art forms with two different goals using very different techniques for different purposes.

but yes, seeing how a fight scene ends before watching a movie can easily spoil it, does it not? a

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Jonathan Townsend » August 11th, 2017, 10:42 am

brianarudolph wrote:Unfortunately in the minds of those who are the target consumers for this kind of content (and even more unfortunately in the minds of most of the producers of this kind of content) methods = secrets.


This is a performing art - the consumer is the audience seeking entertainment. Backstage intrigue and illicit/secret stuff ... meh
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby brianarudolph » August 11th, 2017, 4:20 pm

Jonathan Townsend wrote:This is a performing art - the consumer is the audience seeking entertainment. Backstage intrigue and illicit/secret stuff ... meh


Then why not post performance-only videos? Or is creating videos exposing to the "method = secret crowd" considered just another way of "performing magic?"

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Jonathan Townsend » August 11th, 2017, 10:19 pm

brianarudolph wrote:... Then why not post performance-only videos? ...


At a guess it's related to folks exploring the differences between deceived and fooled. A social mis-step when exploring the shifting boundaries between foreground, background and presumed context?

We're in a strange relationship with our fiction, you see. Sometimes we fear it's taking us over, Sometimes we beg to be taken over by it...sometimes we want to see what's inside it.
Ellis
And of course ... Seneca wrote something about pointless fussing a while ago by way of his humorous "moral letters to Lucilius" - from the one with oft misquoted lines about magicians and their cups and balls: "They lost much time in quibbling about words and in sophistical argumentation; all that sort of thing exercises the wit to no purpose. We tie knots and bind up words in double meanings, and then try to untie them."
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Jack Shalom » August 12th, 2017, 9:12 am

Or is creating videos exposing to the "method = secret crowd" considered just another way of "performing magic?"

That sounds about right to me.

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erdnasephile
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby erdnasephile » August 12th, 2017, 9:47 am

Ugh...When I asked my question above, I failed to recognize the context of the video...

https://www.amazon.com/Spellbound-Princ ... spellbound

Doh! :oops:

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Jonathan Townsend » August 12th, 2017, 1:26 pm

erdnasephile wrote:Ugh...When I asked my question above, I failed to recognize the context of the video...


The usual crutch/PUA sell to that ethnic demographic?
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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erdnasephile
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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby erdnasephile » August 12th, 2017, 1:51 pm

To be clear: my comment was neither directed towards nor was about any particular ethnic demographic.

My point was that I didn't realize the video was apparently part of promoting his book, and that the principles he lays out are the same as described in his book.

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Re: Magician David Kwong Breaks Down How Illusions Work

Postby Jonathan Townsend » August 12th, 2017, 5:37 pm

? I was wondering if the book etc were David's demographic as intended ideal reader/consumer.
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time


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