You Doesn't Have To Call Him Ray
Teller, the quiet half of Penn &, turns 65 today. They're an interesting team, and it's hard to imagine they'd have done half as well as solo acts. But sometimes Teller does his own routines, and they're quite something. His most famous, which has been in their act from the start, is the shadows illusion. (Unfortunately, the only version I can find comes with people talking about it.)
posted by LAGuy @ 12:10 AM
2 Comments:
I've seen Teller do this trick live twice. He's a great showman with it. Last year he filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement against a Dutch magician who figured out how to do it, and was offering to sell the secret (for like $3000 a pop!).
I think I can see how Teller cuts the shadow - I suspect the shadow is actually a back lit image. But I can't figure out how he makes the flower in front come apart in sync.
You don't need a backlit image, you just time your shadow cutting to the falling apart of the real (but trick) flower. The only part required from behind the easel is setting up the blood drip.
Suing someone for stealing a trick is interesting. Can you own a trick, especially its secret? The basics behind most tricks are free for everyone to use, but is the specific dressing you put on it yours? Or can anyone reverse engineer it and take it for their own--the same way they can take a plot mechanism, say, from a clever story they like.
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