I’ve read on a couple blogs now about how Mark Wilson commented on how he thinks that Criss Angel has set television magic back 48 years.

I have mixed feelings about actually.

Mark Wilson is talking about how Criss Angel uses movie magic and camera tricks to accomplish some of his magic tricks. The problem with this is that some of the things on his TV show can’t be done in real life at all. The problem comes when audiences expect that these types of tricks can be done in real life as well, which of course they can’t.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve been asked to levitate, or if I can levitate from building to building like Criss does on TV.

Up until a few weeks ago I always felt that he cheated his audience. He can’t really do those things without the help of a camera crew and an editing room. But, in the latest MAGIC magazine there was an article with Cyril. He basically explained how the things that he does on his show can be done in real life. If you were there at the filming, it would look exactly the same to you, as it did to the camera. The thing that blew my mind is when he explained just how much money it costs to produce these “done in real life” effects. Pulling a card through a submarine window for example. When Cyril did it they spent an enormous amount of money to create the effect. Whereas, with a few stooges and some fancy editing and you can do the same effect for free basically. Which would you do? The end result on TV is the same (or nearly).

Cyril can’t REALLY do that trick in real life either, but, he DID do it in real life. Does this distinction matter to the home audience?

How could Criss possibly produce a whole season’s worth of episodes if he blew the whole budget on a single episode? He couldn’t. It becomes a trade off. Sure, there might be a way to create this effect in real life, but, the home audience isn’t watching it in real life- they’re watching it on their TV sets.

Love Criss or hate him, he’s put magic out there in the mainstream. I’m for one am grateful for that.

I’m very interested to see what type of Illusions will be in Criss Angels Cirque show. I hope I get a chance to see it!