Five cams - - wow . . . .

Actually, in Henry Hay's excellent text, "The Amateur Magician's Handbook", James Randi gives insight on how to practice with video. You don't need 3 mirrors, you need two. Your camera is dead on you at front, and you are flanked on your left and right by 2 mirrors to cover side angles. These should be in the camera's frame of view also. Once set up, do not look at any monitor, but play to the imaginary audience.

I fear that cameras may give a false sense of security. Cameras are not like our eyes. Whereas a camera has one lens seeing things from one fixed angle only, an avrage person has two eyes and, to a limited degree, the ability to see around corners. On a horisontal plane that is.

Just try looking at something a couple of feet away with one eye only and then the other eye only. See how the object jumps and obscures/reveals a part of the background? Everyone has one eye which is the leading one, mine is my left. If I look at my headphones at the end of my desk and close my right eye, they don't seem to move. If I close my left eye, they jump slightly to the left, obscuring a part of the background and revealing another part of the background. This is all very obvious. Now then... when you look at something with both eyes open, say a hand for instance... even though you cannot fully see what is behind it, such as a card, you will see movement in part of the area which appears to be obscured by the foreground. Your passive eye still sees it even though your brain prefers to build a main impression from the image from the leading eye. You have 3D vision and depth perception. A camera does not.

In addition the eyes are several times more light sensitive than a camera and can see things like the shadow of the playing card in the hand where the camera will not. It doesn't matter if you have a nice camera. The contrast range and level of detail just isn't the same. The audience will see flashes where the camera won't. Their eyes will autofocus to something a thousand times faster than a camera (not that it would autofocus on something inside a half-opened hand at all the way an eye will). And with a webcam or low indoor light situation, your camera framerate will be so low that movements disappear between the frames. An object in motion may be completely invisible to the camera and fully visible to the eye. This is completely normal in a low light situation.

Of course there are many advantages to modern technology as well. But I think that when it comes to video, one should perhaps not rely too heavily on it if you are looking for safe angles. In a mirror you will see a lot better what goes on in that tiny narrow strip between your fingers.

By the way... that old urban legend (?) about the blinking or flinching as a result of practicing in front of a mirror... has anyone got any scientific(ish) explanation to how this should supposedly work? I keep hearing about it, but it is always something like "it is said that..." or "I have heard that..." I'm not sure what to believe but it sounds a bit on the improbable side. I mean... blinking, yes, that is probably a commin problem. I do it a little. But is it really caused by practicing in front of a mirror? Or do people just assume that this is a cause because they have heard it said and assume that it is true?

Banester:

In addition to practice, I also tape each show I do. Reviewing this really lets you know where you need to spend your time. It seems like if something's going to go wrong, it does so during an actual performance.

Jim

Short of having real people on hand, is there in fact any better way of practising visual magic, seeing what you actually look like performing, and observing your reheasals than the camcorder?

Brian Caswell http://www.unearthlymagic.com