How is tellers shadow trick done

Jim On Light. Most Popular Categories. Most Popular Posts Last 7 Days. Can you imagine a salad full of these? It would be the trippiest salad you have ever seen: What you see here is a Mycena Looking for something awesome to watch tonight? Then, upon reading your comment, I started wondering again: perhaps it's a combination of both? Wax and laser? No idea where the article is but I've read that Teller has been doing this trick since the 90s. It was a big deal because he's sued at least one other magician for infringement in some ways because he believed there was only one way that the way the trick could be done.

I'd lean towards his use of "dead shorted" wires to melt a wax containment piece. Think of it as the game "Operation" except with a knife instead of tweezers and the rose instead of a buzzer.

Each part of the shadow corresponds to a different part of the rose and the knife shorts completes the circuit. He wouldn't even need was. Just some adhesive. Edit: As others have rightly pointed out, Teller didn't sue because he believed there was only one way to do this illusion.

He sued because the dramatic act of the illusion itself was defendable. He didn't sue over a method because the getting the intellectual rights for the illusion would require a written explanation of it's performance on a document that would be publicly accessible.

It was less that and more the way the guy imitated the very nature of the act itself; the trick was less important than the way it was executed. I think Christian Bale missed the opportunity in that film to just create an army of Christian Bales and make sure Gotham is protected from crime forever.

Yeah honestly I was wondering if he plays a specific score when he does this trick and the timing is just right enough that he knows when the next piece will fall. I'm pretty sure it's just differently mixed wax with lower and higher melting points. The light heats up the wax and the lowest melting point wax, the first piece falls. Practice this enough times with the same light, the same three types of wax and the same flower and you can get the general timing down pretty quickly.

He sticks the knife on the shadow enough in advance, then watches for movement as the wax starts melting and pretends to cut in until it falls off, then moves onto the next one and plays up the dramatics. It's a brilliantly sold, but mechanically simple illusion and that's why Teller's the shit. Magic doesn't have to always be super complex and sophisticated. All it has to do is fool and entertain you and maybe break your brain a little. It is an act after all. Not just a trick. The trick is just one small part.

The act of the magician selling the lie you already know is a lie is the magic. I find it really endearing that most of the most impressive magicians like Penn, Teller and James Randi are really insistent that what they are doing is performing a lie for your entertainment, which is why they despise people like psychics and Uri Geller who claim they actually possess supernatural powers. Still doesn't stop me from half suspecting Teller is an actual wizard though.

Teller's best trick is this 40 year long ventriloquist bit he's got going with "Penn". What I also love from them is how very blatantly they'll showcase just how magicians lie to you, because the trick isn't important.

Presentation is everything. Yeah in the nineties you would have had to attach that kind of laser to a frickin' shark's head. I have nightmares about a world where people are doing Austin Powers impersonations on TikTok, I'm so glad few people had video cameras back then.

I was going to say maybe the stems are fiber optic and an infrared laser is melting what holds things together, but yours sounds more likely. The edges seem really sharp too me. I think the image is from behind and something is happening behind the screen. I thought that was why Teller intentionally walks between the vase and the paper to show that the light is coming from the correct location by him correctly casting a shadow and to show there are no wires from the paper to the flowers.

I was thinking the same way as you earlier, but if you think about it, that's not necessary at all. Literally the whole trick is that there are flowers that are made of wax or there are wires in them or something so that the flowers can fall off on their own.

That's it. That's the whole trick. Everything else is real. All the shadows, everything. Watch it again and think to yourself, "There's something in the flowers that let the leaves fall off on their own. If you think that to yourself, you'll see the trick still "works". That's the only necessary component. This actually leaves out the last bit of the gag, with the blood. He cuts his finger, then the touches the flower and the canvas bleeds, I think. Or maybe he touches the canvas and there's just a ridiculous amount of blood.

Edit: Someone found a more complete video here. I have to think the fact that he pushes the knife through the paper has to be key. Like the knife is completing a circuit to the shorted wire or something. Teller has changed how he does this trick over time at least a few times. Using a laser like that would be incredibly dangerous. Not only to Teller, but to anybody in the audience.

I'm working on a magic show at the moment and this might be a lot higher tech than what the actual answer is. Edit: now that I look at it closer I dont think so. However, the back of the entire "flower" could be held up by a wire going all along the entire layout of the "plant" and then in the vase there could be a wireless power supply and remote to heat the wire and melt the wax up for each section maybe?

What a cool trick. Yeah I don't get why people are getting so sci-fi with this explanation. He doesn't wave his hands around the flower at all to show there's no wiring. It's entirely possible it's rigged with extremely thin strings with the flowers connected with wax. Heat from the lamps makes the wax soft so it doesn't appear to just snap off and the corresponding string gets pulled depending on where he is on the shadow. His body moves with the leaves deforming which moves his hand without it looking like he's moving his hand.

He's an absolute master with the stuff, just watch his floating ball stuff. You can see him grab the wire when he changes hands of the knife. It's incredibly subtle though. Uh what? The petals are making the shadow. There really is a light shining onto the flower that is making the shadow on the wall or whatever it is.

Holds tight at his side and slowly pulls back. Line falls to the floor with the leaf. Does a subtle tightness check before he raises the knife.

Fake snip with a small pull off his wrist. Line falls to the floor. This is also the longest. As he pulls the knife with his left hand he pulls the line over his right shoulder to start the cutting. To finish up here he raises the arm to knock off what's left of the flower. Edit: take back 3. Has it in his pocket. Takes it out after wiping his face. Pulls down right hand, switches to left while he switches knife to right.

Pull back left hand. The strings are attached to the knife. Whenever he turns the knife, he is applying tension to the string, which causes the petals to fall. Look at his free hand and the way he moves the knife. Def some invisible wire type thing. He's controlling it as he's "poking" the shadow.

That is my thought exactly. You can tell it is wax by the way it is falling ever so slightly the entire time. And he keeps his peripherals on it at all times because wax is somewhat unpredictable.

Just having someone else control the flower from off stage would be pure anathema to a guy like that. My guess is strings that are tied to the flowers, then go up and around a bar or some sort of fixture which is outside of the view of the camera and then come back down and are fixed to the paper.

That way he can still walk in front of the paper without touching the strings. Dude is ridiculous, I don't think I've been able to figure out any one of his solo magic tricks. Tiny threads are running through the fake plant's stems to the leaves. Somebody off-stage gives a light tug on the threads, which disconnects the leaf from the stem.

No he is controlling the strings, Teller would not do a trick like this with backstage controlling it. These guys are old-school, maybe for a minor fun trick they would use a cheat like that, but not for part of their signature act.

District Judge James Mahan states that explicitly. What is protectable under copyright law is pantomimes, the art of conveying emotions, actions and feelings by gestures. The theatrical medium where magicians work has some of the flavor of pantomimes , and Teller has used it to his advantage.

The light falls in a such a manner that the shadow of the real rose is projected onto a white screen positioned some distance behind it. In , Teller even registered Shadows with the U. Copyright Office in He included pictures:. Teller has been performing this trick for nearly four decades. In "Shadows," a spotlight casts a shadow of a rose onto a white screen.

When Teller "cuts" the shadow on the screen with a knife, the corresponding parts of the flower fall to the floor. To promote the kits, he posted a video of his performance to YouTube and prepared a magazine ad. With the video down, the link points to screenshots from the video filed by Teller in his lawsuit.

Teller had Bakardy's video removed with a DMCA takedown notice, then called Bakardy to demand that the magician stop using his routine. Teller offered to buy Bakardy out, but they were unable to agree on a price.