Americas Got Talent - Kevin James Illusion
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Kevin James on America’s Got Talent recently then you’re in for a treat. This Magic Trick is so good that it’s been leaving people baffled for weeks.
Here’s how the trick is done:
- There’s three people involved, the disabled person, the dwarf & the whole person.
- The legs standing beside the table are actually of someone bent forward underneath the desk, this could either be the real whole person or mechanical legs of some sort.
- The upper body is someone who is disabled & actually has no lower body to begin with.
- When the upper body is cut the disabled person does his thing, you’ll notice that when he’s carried off then table is wheeled away.
- When this is done they switch everything for the 3rd Real Person & everyone is none the wiser.
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I have a very good acquaintance who is an exceptionally good magician. We watched the video intently last night. He gets the credit for suspecting the way the trick was done.
Remember, the explanation shouldn’t take away from a very clever and visually entertaining illusion.
There are a few very important camera cutaways. They start at 0:59 seconds in and end around 1:07.
First, the setup. Other than the doctor, the nurse, and the midget, there are two individuals on the original platform. One actually does not have a lower half to his torso, not unheard of today. The other is in the legs at the side of the table and is bent forward at the waist. His upper torso is hidden in the table. Also note the use of masks on the two “victims”. Helps with the illusion that there’s only one guy involved.
The two trickiest parts of this illusion are 1) when the man with the full torso is moved and placed on the rolling table used at the end of the trick, and 2) when the man with only the upper torso is removed from the same rolling table. BTW, they have to move the upper-torso man to allow the other man to get his upper torso out of the original table.
Two camera cutaways occur at those exact moments. If you look very closely you’ll also start to suspect that the duration of the cutaways were not sufficient for the changes on the stage. Also, not a bad bit of lifting for that frail looking nurse. Funny how you only see her putting the “legs” on the table but not lifting and movement to get them there. It’s also interesting that both the doctor and the “half-man” are blocking the upper torso of the man (legs) placed on the table.
This is why some illusions make a big deal of “using a continuous camera shot”. Had that happened in this case then the trick would have been truly amazing. I suspect that David Hasselhoff, et. al. were either in on the trick or their camera reactions we not in response to this illusion.
In 8 seconds there are three camera cutaways that make the trick.
Clever editing strikes again.
Fun to watch but kinda cheap magic, don’t you think?
And did they ever actually show a shot of the audience?
this is an AMAZING site and an amazing trick, in science class today we’re studing the eye and Optical Illusions, they’re pretty cool, i’m gald there are websites like this to check out the things that cause a little mystery in life, who knows, mabey someday they’ll be able to do that in one continuous shot! me and my friend do this webshow though, (the danni show, check it out on youtube) and we know what it’s like to have to TRY to do it all in one continuous shot, it doesn’t work out as often as we’d like it to, so that would be about never, but this is still a GREAT place, and video!