<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OYtTt1e7wms" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Fast foward to the 41:00 mark. Holy cow, anyone know how this trick is done?????? I would understand a little bit if Teller were wearing long sleeves, but short sleeves. Simply amazing how he seems to perform it flawlessly.
His right hand is going behind the tank... There is a mirror that makes it seem like he has both hands in the tank...
Its different. They generally don't reveal the secret behind tricks in this one. At least, not in an obvious way.
<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7J_RWu64jMk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> very cool
Damn I want more. Is this the first season, with only 7 episodes thus far? I wish Penn and Teller could deny some of these magicians Vegas simply on the grounds that their tricks really suck. Who cares if they fooled P&T. Who wants to see boring card tricks that are so cliche anyways? Besides, those two nerds from episode 5 clearly cheated.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/EwCNTxS_RWo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> ok........ wtf is going on here? how can this be? This guy predicts not only the names of the 3 men, but which table each will be sitting at, and which plate of food they will be given. And all these variables are chosen by a lady at random in the audience. She even has opportunity after opportunity to change her mind if she likes. Usually when this happens, the magician uses slight of hand to make everything right again if the trick goes haywire from the random person changing their mind.... but in this case the magician is letting the 3 random guys hold the envelopes with the predictions. Is this pure luck, or is there slight of hand involved? If so, where? Even after the 3 men were chosen and walking on stage, the magician wasn't writing their names down on the prediction letter, he was clapping his hands for them to come on stage. Don't know how this trick works but I'm amazed.
Disclosure: I didn't figure this out myself. It sounds like the name part is the actual 'trick'. You assume that when each man read the message they were reading it verbatim. But if the message actually said something to the effect of "Sitting at table #1 is <insert name here> and he will be served chicken tikka masala" then you only need to make sure that envelope and the table matched up. I'm not sure all the details but the permutations aren't as large as you might think.
but she controls the envelopes after he has handed them out and the placement of the men even if the number and food match up, the right set of number/food could be seated at the wrong table
and keep in mind, she chose which food to be placed at which table, and also had the chance to change her mind.
or, to this trick, there was a plan b, c, d, e, f, ect.... if the order got screwed up He knew the names/foods/tables on the envelopes, and knew which envelope contained which. So he mightve had backup plans to add to the trick to get this combination exact but IDK.... seems rather stretching to guess that.
OK. I looked at the video closer and I figured it out. It might be disappointing to you guys how it was achieved but all magic tricks kind of do once you figure out the 'trick'. But if a trick has the intended affect then I think it's great either way. Spoiler
In one of Derren Brown's shows, he revealed that in mentalism he essentially plants ideas into the audiences head. The way he did it was that in regular conversation or when he was talking to the audience, he slipped in the words that he wants to plant, but it's difficult for the audience to realize it. For example, he'd be saying: "look it this lovely piece of cloth, totally black, left, and totally clean. Now I want an audience member to to stand up, walk up to the stage, green, and check for me that this is a perfectly normal piece of cloth." The words "left" and "green" get stuck in the audience's mind subconsciously, without them picking up on it. They may think that Derren was speaking oddly and not making sense, but don't consciously think about it. Later on, he'll do some trick giving an audience member choices as to which direction and color to choose, and they will inherently be want to choose "left" and "green". In this video, I don't know how he does it.
How the trick is done: Spoiler If you look at Yonkers post above, that picture shows the yellow card (which was table #1's card), but if you look at the text, it has table 3/pizza on it... indicating that every card had the same things on it (all three table's meals), and the person at the table simply had to read "their" message (which was for the table they were at). They insert their own name, and are trusted to read from the correct line. Thus, the only thing that matters is that the performer knows which meal is at which table, and then he pulls out the correct set of cards that has that permutation on it (6 possible permutations, thus he likely has 6 different sets of envelopes in his various pockets). So, yes... technically the audience member chooses which meal should go on which table, and she can switch this around as much as possible at first. After that is set, the host knows which set of cards to pull out (and remember, each card within in the set all have identical words). Once you choose the other audience members to come up on stage, you can switch the cards around as much as possible... along with where they sit as much as possible... as long as you don't switch the food/table from that point on. In the end, a lot of trust is put into the ones picked at "Random" to come up on stage to not screw things up by actually saying their name, along with reading from the correct line on the card... which makes me think that they were likely pre-interviewed/evaluated to ensure that they would do the right thing. The key is that the performer tells them all to "read YOUR message" when reading from the card.
so your saying to everyone else the trick was jaw dropping but to the 3 men that were chosen they knew it wasn't as spectacular as it appeared?
ok let me try this one on you: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ksCmIJcWa3U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> At random, the ball is thrown into the audience and the person who catches it chooses: 1) black or red, 2) heart or diamond, 3) high or low, 4) 7,8,9,10,J,Q,K, Somehow someway he has a way of putting it into the minds of people to choose the card he has predicted. I don't believe for a second however that it is the way we think. The ball he throws does have more red on it then black. Heart or diamond, well I guess he has a 50.50 chance here. High or Low, again 50/50 chance. 7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,........... Don't know how he got the person to choose the number 9. however. It's not really in the middle of the choices.
He didn't "predict." I was going to answer: "Why do they need to bring their reading glasses if the text should be large and incredibly easy to read?" And then I thought: the plates are at different weights or colors so that the 'magician' knows what cards to pull out from his pocket. On the latter trick: notice that the cards aren't "shuffled" after the audience decides it. They are "cut" already in a certain way that has those permutations or combinations from the choices, but we are most likely right on him "planting" the color on the audience's minds. In addition, the ball also has the black color, so it makes it difficult in that color respect, too.
I watched an all day marathon of this on BBC last summer since it was the only channel they had in English...it was pretty entertaining.
I believe he has the pattern on the cards such that he can make every phrase. For example, one card has a semi-circle on it which could be used to make an O,C,Q whatever. I would guess he has just taken tons of time and memorized how to organize the cards for each different phrase.
