He took particular pride in the fact that he never copied another magician's effects, though his own work was extensively imitated by others.
Dogs and prostitutes do tricks, magicians do effects".
Still, like some cruel magician, the play effects a series of transformations, leaving its characters – who began so assuredly – injured and undefended, bereft of most comforts and illusions.
"Instead of isolating the specific variables and using one effect, magicians lump everything together, putting illusions on top of illusions," says Martinez-Conde.
Mr. Scorsese's "Hugo" — a 3-D digital extravaganza about George Méliès, the early-20th-century stage magician turned special-effects pioneer — is a perfect expression of the idea that embracing the new has the essence of cinematic tradition from the start.
But Instagram has also begun Spotlighting individual creators like Zach King, a video effects magician known for using seamless cuts to transmute eggs or oranges into chickens or orange juice.
And books, wall after wall of bookshelves, with not only Max Malini's original copy of Erdnase but also a first edition of "Discoverie of Witchcraft" and the writings of Méliès, the French magician who invented special effects (dissolves, double exposures) in early movies — the effects that doomed Big Magic.
Cooper hired magician James Randi to design effects for the show, and Randi traveled with the tour to supervise and coordinate the effects.
Apparatus refers to the props and effects magicians use in their acts and encompasses everything from trick cards and silk scarves to boxes that can be sawn in half.
(Swiss wrote that once, after he performed the Cigarette Through Quarter — perfectly, in his opinion — a spectator responded, "Neat. Where's that nifty coin with the hole in it?") What makes a trick work is not the inherent astoundingness of its effect but the magician's ability to suggest any number of possible explanations, none of them conclusive, and none of them quite obvious.
