David Blaine, I think, was the first TV magician to really turn the camera around and make it about the spectator's experience. That's really what magic is all about.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Alan Funt was the first hidden-camera magician. It was the playful nature of the way he worked that really inspired me. A lot of prank shows and hidden-camera shows can be a little mean-spirited. Funt was never like that.
I'm such a proponent of the theatrical experience and the cinematic experience, and we've reached this point where the magicians are not only giving away their tricks, but they're telling us how they're doing the tricks in advance before you even come to the magic show. It'd be nice to get a little of the mystery back in.
Magic is like special effects live, and I love to perform, so it sounded like doing magic tricks were a good way to entertain people.
Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.
I think there's a huge amount of magic on television, which is slightly vapid: there's no real meaning or message behind it; it is simply a trick.
Harry Collins was the first magician I ever saw back in 1965 when I was five years old. He was doing a magic show and I was the volunteer from the audience.
The goal is to really blur the line. Can you perform a magic trick in a way that someone doesn't think it's a magic trick but is something amazing they haven't seen before? Then they have to wrestle with reality.
Magic, historically, has been a man doing tricks with no wider story behind it.
I think people know Steve Jobs the showman. I think people know the guy who stood up and gave the keynotes. The magician. The salesman.
All David Blaine is is a good-looking magician.