MAGIC U CAN DO IT 5

Eye popper
This can be a real shocker.

-Items needed
A fork, knife or spoon.
Coffee milk and/or cream container.
When you’re at the restaurant with some friends and your feeling kind of down….

-Method
Very slyly grab one of those coffee milk / cream containers and hide it in your hand. Now with the other hand, pick up a knife, fork or spoon. Start talking to yourself, saying, “I’m hate my life, I just don’t feel like I can take it anymore.” Until everyone at the table starts to look at you in a weird way. Then take the hand with container concealed in it and hold it up to your eye with the paper side down, and take the spoon and act like you’re showing it into your eye. (take care here; it is better to use a blunt object such as a spoon handle) A bunch of white milk/ cream will come squirting out on everybody. If you want to make it more dramatic scream and fall on the floor, and start having convulsions.




David Blaine and Balducci levitation
-Effect
The magician raises his arms up by his sides and slowly appears to rise a few inches off the ground for a little while before returning to earth quickly.

-Balducci method
The balducci method involves positioning your audience about 8 to 10 feet away at a 45-degree angle. You need to keep your audience small so they are within this field of sight. This very restrictive angle trick and it is essential that the angels be practiced, preferably with a friend or in front of mirror. The balducci levitation involves pretending to float off the ground by going on to your tiptoes on just one foot (the one furthest from their view) while the nearest foot is raised a little off the ground. This looks fantastic as your trousers; the nearest foot and the angel they are watching at hide the foot on your tiptoe. You only rise a few inches off the ground but the impression is fantastic. This trick is all in the presentation with you appearing to rise slowly, wait for a second or two and then return to the ground quickly so as the audience do not have time to figure the trick out.

-David Blaine version
David Blaine used various camera shots in his TV special with the audience reaction being filmed close up and linked to other clips of him in mid air with some of the angels showing the balducci levitation. The special did not show the number of times he mucked up the illusion, which is very easy to do. The view that shows him rise a good few inches in the air and doesn’t show the audience and would have been done with a bar attached to a pivot like a seesaw. The end of the pivot would have had a hook which clipped on to a hams attached to his belt and a member of the crew would have pushed down on the other side of the bar lifting David up in the air. The camera angle would have hidden the props. The film would have been mixed in with the audience clips in the studious later.

-10 tips to perform the perfect Balducci Levitation.

1. Wear wide leg pants or slacks that come down just past your ankles. This dramatically helps cover the “other” foot.

2. Face the right angle – if audience is at “6 o’clock” and you are in the middle of the clock-face to 10:30 or 11:00 away from them.

3. Only do the tricks for 2 or 3 people at a time-more than that create a bigger angle for you to deal with. Even better is only one person. You have to control which tricks you do and when. Do trick when the “deck” is stacked in your favor. Then let those few people talk and build rumors. Your reputation will be greater.

4. Don’t stand too far away from your audience on the levitation…about 6 feet is good, up to about 8 feet.

5. Never, ever tell them that your are about levitation. If you do that it will make them watch harder. You want a surprise element to it….almost as if they don’t quite know what they saw.

6. Tell them you are going to “try” something…it doesn’t always work and you have only been able to do it twice before. Then move away to the approximate correct distance and somewhat turn your back to the 10:30 angle in order to “concentrate”. Then put your hands down by your sides and after a few moments slowly start to rise. Going up, hovering for a moment, and coming down should only take about 4 second total? Come down, look surprised yourself and go, “wow…it worked. Did you see that?”

7. If you are turned slightly to the left from them make sure your left foot remains parallel to the floor on” lift off”. (That is what gives a big part of the illusion is that foot’s toes being up in the air).

8. Practice rising up and down over and over…do it a “million” times-get it SMOOTH and effortless.

9. Do a few smaller tricks for them first….get them used to being affected by street magic and the fact that you can do it. Don’t ever just jump into the balducci levitation as your first trick. Get them impacted first, and then say, “There was something I’ve done couple of mind reading tricks right before it and they are thinking about the paranormal.

10. Practicing the levitation in a mirror is good, but if you have a video camera and can set it up on tripod at eye level-exactly where your audience’s eyes would be-is literally ten times better. It will improve your levitation dramatically.

This tips if practiced should make your levitation much, much better