I gave away the secret.

alfaniner

Penultimate Amazing
alfaniner
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I'm no magician, but on occasion I've done the Balducci Levitation, to varying effect. This weekend I was at a friend's wedding and I'd promised one 9-year-old kid to show him the "levitation trick". Every time he saw me after that he'd ask "levitation trick?", but the conditions or angles were never right for it.

Finally, one night it was right and I did it. Unfortunately, this was following the reception and putting it delicately, my equilibrium was not what it should have been, so he saw through it right away and didn't get it. Not impressed. (I know, "Don't Drink and Conjure"...)

The next morning he asked me to do it again, but having deduced the means the night before, was still not impressed. However, he was very interested in learning how to do it the right way. So I gave him the details about the angles and such, and worked with him a little bit. He got to doing it so well that it even freaked me out to see him rise like that. This kid is a little performer and I'm sure he'll be amazing his little friends at school now.

Either that, or everybody in the world will know how to do it by next week.

Sorry about that...
 
alfaniner said:
Either that, or everybody in the world will know how to do it by next week.
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When I was that age, it was tough to be a kid magician. You basically had to keep your magical hobby to yourself.

Various pieces of trick apparatus were peddled with the ubiquitous exclamation, "Amaze your friends!" Oh, they'd be amazed all right. And they'd demand to know how the trick was done. Their amazement was almost always followed by a display of bad manners. They'd grab at the apparatus, or do whatever they could to expose the secret.

I learned the hard way that performing for one's peers at a young age was not a good idea. But as everyone became more mature, there was more openness to magic as entertainment.

In high school, my friends and I could show magic tricks to each other and to other students without being harrassed. One of my classmates was really good at magic, and he turned professional.
 
That's how I found out how to do it in the first place.

However, I just came up with a variation on it. I'd have him call it the "Spider-Man" trick, and have him place his hands on the wall in true Spidey fashion, then do the trick. This would have the advantage of 1) helping to keep balance (one of my problems), and 2)blocking off several bad angles.
 
What exactly is it?

I WILL google it...but...Can you actually leviatate by means of chemical force or electromagnetic fields?
 
I will give away this secret.

I feel I can explain those extraordinary Criss Angel levitations tricks. It is simple. You see he is also a performing hypnotist. All he needs is a captive audience to dis-associated there minds away for those hoisting devices and they get the illusion they a really observing a true levitation. But is a totally different technique aimed for the viewers watching the video footage on their television at home .
You see during production of the video those hoisting devises are edited out of the picture and digitally remastered. So us un-hypnotized viewers back home get to view the image as the hypnotized audience see it. The illusion as reinforced still further as a few hypnotized participants are interviewees and genuinely express such bemusement as such a magical feat.

:crc:
 
CD, I can't tell if you are joking here or not. Having done the levitation bit for a class in paranormal belief, I can assure you that unhypnotized people can have an extreme reaction to the Balducci Levitation, even though it is such a small trick. I certainly agree with the second camera shot and remixing during production, but with just a few run-throughs (runs-through?) of the levitation, you should get plenty of reaction shots without the need for hypnosis.

What convinced my students, and allowed them to convince their friends, was reminding them that [David Blaine, in this case] did his shooting with a single camera for the vast majority of his act. How was it, then, that he suddenly, for this trick, had the luxury of multiple cuts for reaction shots and extreme levitation?
 
I noticed that in a one of Criss Angel's levitation demonstrations there was the back half of a coat still hanging to to ground - there could easily be room for a rigid support - which rather reminds me of that simple Balducci Levitation. But in the more extreme examples where the subject is levitating well clear of the ground kind of smacks to me of digital video retouching. In other words I would have to be there to believe it.
Who knows in real life he may be standing of a bright yellow stool but through disassociation some may not see it as they are conditioned to see things with their minds and not their eyes. Just imagine if you combine to two theatrical disciplines of hypnosis and illusion it would be amazing the tricks you could pull off.

In every case there is certainly a solid support present even though I cannot see it.

That other little trick where he folded a simple drawing of a butterfly a "volunteer" woman did and as he unfolded it a real butterfly flew out was obviously rigged.
 
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Try my "Trick Boot" on for size

Here is another form Balducci Levitation where people can get the illusion of observing both toes four inches off the ground at once. I would suggest one "trick boot" where most of the soul cut out just leave the out edge in tact (or burnt out like some of those failed fire walkers) just so the toe end of the foot enter in and out of the boot easily. The trick boot should show no external signs to that modification at all to the audience. Then all the magician has to do is balance on the toe of foot that is wearing the trick boot to raise him or herself off the ground and the observers get the illusion that both toes are levitating up off the ground at once.
 
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Ooops!! sorry a typo

Oops!! I pick up typo there in my last post I meant sole and not soul. Shame the spell checker did not pick that blooper up.
 
It's often stated that the Balducci Levitation was made famous by David Blaine. While reading a bio on him the other day, something occured to me. I learned this trick in 1981--when David Blaine would have been 8 years old.

ETA: Ed Balducci died in 1988, but I don't know when he developed the illusion.
 
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Brown said:
When I was that age, it was tough to be a kid magician. You basically had to keep your magical hobby to yourself.
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Most kids at some point get interested in this and they get a "Jr. Magician" kit from Toys-R-Us.

My buddy's 9 year old son, though, was doing some card tricks, and he had a magnificent patter going on throughout the whole thing, very natural and entertaining. I had never seen a child do magic like that. Very impressive.
 
Psi Baba said:
It's often stated that the Balducci Levitation was made famous by David Blaine. While reading a bio on him the other day, something occured to me. I learned this trick in 1981--when David Blaine would have been 8 years old.

ETA: Ed Balducci died in 1988, but I don't know when he developed the illusion.
Click to expand...

IIRC, the Blane one on TV was somewhat fraudulent to the viewer. The one where the girls watching him gasp is the standard one, but the one they showed of him rising, where he's a lot further up than he could be balancing on the balls of one's foot was using a harness above him with wires, which the show didn't mention.

Thus editing made it appear he rose up a ton mysteriously, and the girls gasped at that rather than the other variant.
 
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