Ottershrew
Jedi Master
Thanks Data for the debunking video. I was amazed by the fact that when the "Chriss Angel Mindfreak" video said, "NO Camera Tricks! NO Hollywood Effects! NO Editing Tricks!" I was prepared to just accept that. Astonishing, really. There I was ready to look for some other explanation of the illusion.
I can't remember where I heard this, but one of the best ways to understand an illusion of this sort is to bear in mind their aim: they're going to be doing it to entertain. That means that they're going to do it to the best of their ability, with all the resources at their disposal - which will include paid audience members (i.e. stooges or actors), and plenty of camera and editing tricks. Not to mention throwing a lot of money into the performance. So if that means hiring a crane from which they use wires to stage a levitation, then they'll do just that. As far as we're concerned, we'll just be looking for the simplest possible explanation - partly because we're trained to always look for the simplest solution. It's part of the scientific method, after all. Using a crane just seems so inelegant - so surely they wouldn't do that? Technical testing in a workshop beforehand of wires and harness - surely they wouldn't have wasted so much time doing that? And then add in editing footage, digital manipulation, and sheets of glass - well, surely they wouldn't do that, would they?
Well, yes they would. The banality of it all is actually staggering, when you know how it's done. That amount of energy, all those guys pulling on ropes, others acting as though they were amazed bystanders, all that work in editing suites afterwards, making sure nobody gets too close to what's actually going on, all the constant chatter over walkie-talkies to coordinate things. And none of this team ever lets on.
But then, why should they? We want to accept the simplest explanation, which will be 1. we've just witnessed a real miracle, or (if that won't do) 2. some one single way in which the trick was pulled off. But of course, there isn't a simple single way in which the trick was pulled off. They did all sorts of things. They put a lot of coordination of manpower, they thought of the most complicated way of doing things (not the simplest), they invested perhaps thousands of dollars into the trick, etc.
It's all quite reminiscent of the staged events on 9-11, imo.
I can't remember where I heard this, but one of the best ways to understand an illusion of this sort is to bear in mind their aim: they're going to be doing it to entertain. That means that they're going to do it to the best of their ability, with all the resources at their disposal - which will include paid audience members (i.e. stooges or actors), and plenty of camera and editing tricks. Not to mention throwing a lot of money into the performance. So if that means hiring a crane from which they use wires to stage a levitation, then they'll do just that. As far as we're concerned, we'll just be looking for the simplest possible explanation - partly because we're trained to always look for the simplest solution. It's part of the scientific method, after all. Using a crane just seems so inelegant - so surely they wouldn't do that? Technical testing in a workshop beforehand of wires and harness - surely they wouldn't have wasted so much time doing that? And then add in editing footage, digital manipulation, and sheets of glass - well, surely they wouldn't do that, would they?
Well, yes they would. The banality of it all is actually staggering, when you know how it's done. That amount of energy, all those guys pulling on ropes, others acting as though they were amazed bystanders, all that work in editing suites afterwards, making sure nobody gets too close to what's actually going on, all the constant chatter over walkie-talkies to coordinate things. And none of this team ever lets on.
But then, why should they? We want to accept the simplest explanation, which will be 1. we've just witnessed a real miracle, or (if that won't do) 2. some one single way in which the trick was pulled off. But of course, there isn't a simple single way in which the trick was pulled off. They did all sorts of things. They put a lot of coordination of manpower, they thought of the most complicated way of doing things (not the simplest), they invested perhaps thousands of dollars into the trick, etc.
It's all quite reminiscent of the staged events on 9-11, imo.
