Makng the Statue of Liberty Vanish

[C J Campbell]

One of David Copperfield's most impressive illusions was making the Statue
of Liberty vanish. He raised a curtain in front of the crowd, made a very
poetic speech, dropped the curtain and the statue was gone, with just a
couple of helicopters circling overhead shining spotlights on the bare base
of the monument.

<Heavy sigh> I don't suppose he could do this trick again. Everybody would
be up in arms about the helicopters flying too close to the statue and over
a crowd of people.

I suppose he could still make a Lear jet disappear.

--
Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor
Port Orchard, WA


If you go around beating the Bush, don't complain if you rile the animals.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"C J Campbell" > wrote in message
...
>
> One of David Copperfield's most impressive illusions was making the Statue
> of Liberty vanish. He raised a curtain in front of the crowd, made a very
> poetic speech, dropped the curtain and the statue was gone, with just a
> couple of helicopters circling overhead shining spotlights on the bare
base
> of the monument.
>

I saw that program, must have been twelve to fifteen years ago. As I recall
they used a split screen; one side was supposed to be a live TV picture, the
other was supposed to be a live radar image. I thought it odd that the
helicopters were not displayed on the radar image as they should have been.

[Bill]

> One of David Copperfield's most impressive illusions was making the Statue
> of Liberty vanish. He raised a curtain in front of the crowd, made a very
> poetic speech, dropped the curtain and the statue was gone, with just a
> couple of helicopters circling overhead shining spotlights on the bare
base
> of the monument.
>
> <Heavy sigh> I don't suppose he could do this trick again. Everybody would
> be up in arms about the helicopters flying too close to the statue and
over
> a crowd of people.
>
> I suppose he could still make a Lear jet disappear.
>
> --

I saw one of those 'Magician's Secrets Revealed' shows one time and they
showed how this illusion is performed. The object never actually disappears
of course, its done by moving the camera to a different scene without the TV
audience realizing it. Contrary to what the magician says, the people
present in the live audience are in on the joke and only pretend to be
amazed. Maybe he can make the TFRs disappear instead. He has apparently
already given the illusion to our government that their domestic security
policy over the last two years have made any difference other than to annoy
everybody and waste the taxpayer's money.

[John E. Carty]

"Bill" > wrote in message
...
>> One of David Copperfield's most impressive illusions was making the
>> Statue
>> of Liberty vanish. He raised a curtain in front of the crowd, made a very
>> poetic speech, dropped the curtain and the statue was gone, with just a
>> couple of helicopters circling overhead shining spotlights on the bare
> base
>> of the monument.
>>
>> <Heavy sigh> I don't suppose he could do this trick again. Everybody
>> would
>> be up in arms about the helicopters flying too close to the statue and
> over
>> a crowd of people.
>>
>> I suppose he could still make a Lear jet disappear.
>>
>> --
>


> I saw one of those 'Magician's Secrets Revealed' shows one time and they
> showed how this illusion is performed. The object never actually
> disappears
> of course, its done by moving the camera to a different scene without the
> TV
> audience realizing it.

No, he had a special stage constructed that revolved very slowly and quietly
while the curtains were drawn. When they reopened the curtains the statue
appeared to be gone as the curtains themselves were obstructing the view. It
was well thought out with even the chairs being bolted into position to have
the audience at the perfect angle to pull off this illusion. It was also
very expensive :-)

>Contrary to what the magician says, the people
> present in the live audience are in on the joke and only pretend to be
> amazed. Maybe he can make the TFRs disappear instead. He has apparently
> already given the illusion to our government that their domestic security
> policy over the last two years have made any difference other than to
> annoy
> everybody and waste the taxpayer's money.
>
>

[David H]

C J Campbell wrote:

> One of David Copperfield's most impressive illusions was making the Statue
> of Liberty vanish. He raised a curtain in front of the crowd, made a very
> poetic speech, dropped the curtain and the statue was gone, with just a
> couple of helicopters circling overhead shining spotlights on the bare base
> of the monument.

CJ, it wasn't David Copperfield, it was Ashcroft/Bush/Ridge.

The book that Lady Liberty had been clutching to her chest all those years -
it turned out to be an almanac, so they hauled her ass off to Guantanamo.

David H
Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Visit the Pacific Northwest Flying forum:
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/pnwflying

[Peter Duniho]

"C J Campbell" > wrote in message
...
> <Heavy sigh> I don't suppose he could do this trick again. Everybody would
> be up in arms about the helicopters flying too close to the statue and
over
> a crowd of people.

Since the helicopters weren't actually anywhere near the Statue, I doubt
much of a fuss would have been made at all.

[C J Campbell]

Actually, John Carty is correct in how the illusion was performed. The
helicopters were actually there, though the pilots were in on the trick. One
of the purposes of the helicopters was to shine lights in the eyes of the
live audience to make sure that they were blinded. The basic illusion can be
found in Poundstone.

The stage consisted of seating for the live audience, two towers with an
arch between them, and a curtain that could be lowered from the arch. The
entire stage could be rotated. The audience was seated so that they could
not move around and see what was going on behind the towers. The helicopters
circling overhead helped disorient the live audience so they could not feel
the stage turn. When the curtain was dropped, the statue had 'vanished.'
What had really happened was that the stage was turned so that now the
audience was just looking out to sea. The noise from the helicopters also
helped to obscure any noise that the rotating stage might have made. One of
the two towers had been repositioned to obscure the statue from the
audience. Since the TV cameras faced the same direction as the audience, the
TV audience would be limited to the same view that the live audience had.
While the curtain was in place and the stage was rotating, assistants turned
off the lights ringing the statue and turned on a second set of lights so
that the audience would think that they were looking at the same lights that
surrounded the statue. The lights on the ground and the spotlights from the
helicopters served to blind the audience by destroying their night vision.

The radar was only a video animation shown for the TV audience and it was
not well executed. It just looks cheesy -- not even a real radar screen. The
illusion would have been better without it. I have noticed this about
Copperfield -- his grand illusions are very impressive and show a talent for
showmanship, but he almost invariably degrades the whole thing by throwing
in some cheap trick like this. Witness the awful penetration of the Great
Wall of China illusion, for example, where somebody (probably Copperfield
himself) keeps pushing against the cloth on the far side of the wall. It
just looks dumb and adds nothing to the illusion. The Escape from Alcatraz
had some of the same stuff.

I really did not want to talk about how the illusion was performed. Most
magic really consists of, well, pretty dumb stuff. Knowing how the trick is
done really detracts from the show and often leaves people with the feeling
that they have been had by a cheap shot, which is not fair to the magician
or the other performers.

[Andrew Gideon]

C J Campbell wrote:

> I really did not want to talk about how the illusion was performed. Most
> magic really consists of, well, pretty dumb stuff. Knowing how the trick
> is done really detracts from the show and often leaves people with the
> feeling that they have been had by a cheap shot, which is not fair to the
> magician or the other performers.

I've no idea how many people fall on either side of the argument, but I
don't agree with you. Rather, I find myself impressed knowing the
mechanics of an illusion. It's kind of like flying to me (bringing this
back OT {8^)...knowing how an airplane works doesn't make the engineering
feat any less impressive...or the experience of flight any less wonderous.

- Andrew

[Robert M. Gary]

"C J Campbell" > wrote in message >...
> One of David Copperfield's most impressive illusions was making the Statue
> of Liberty vanish. He raised a curtain in front of the crowd, made a very
> poetic speech, dropped the curtain and the statue was gone, with just a
> couple of helicopters circling overhead shining spotlights on the bare base
> of the monument.
>
> <Heavy sigh> I don't suppose he could do this trick again. Everybody would
> be up in arms about the helicopters flying too close to the statue and over
> a crowd of people.
>
> I suppose he could still make a Lear jet disappear.

He didn't move the statue, just the audience. The audience was
actually in on the trick (when I saw that in the "making off" I was
pretty disappointed to see the audience was faking it). The audience
sat on a moving platform that rotated so they were actually looking in
a different direction.
Some of these guys border on T.V. fakery. That David Blain guy claims
he can levitate. He uses a pretty simple trick of hiding one of his
feet behind the other leg to push himself up. However, when you see it
on T.V. they actually lifted him with a cable to make it look more
dramatic. So the audience is really (honestly) impressed but those of
us at home are mislead into believing he was much higher than the
audience saw.