Yesterday, I linked to a video from America's Got Talent with The Pendragons performing "Metamorphosis" — a classic illusion but one that they perform better than anyone. As a couple of you wrote me, the show's director broke a fundamental rule by doing cutaways during the trick, showing the audience and the judges.
That's usually a no-no. Even if the home audience sees everything significant that they'd see if they were there watching it live, cutaways disrupt the flow and the sense of "this is actually happening." On magic specials, they often announce during an incredible feat that "the camera will not cut away" because they know it makes viewers suspicious. You can hide a lot of chicanery, and make a trick go much faster than it did in reality, if you cut away. A number of magicians on television (not the Pendragons) have been criticized because though they boast of no camera trickery, they do edit together multiple takes of a trick or edit a six minute act down to three.
It's part of the odd code of Truth Telling in magic. If you say "no camera tricks are being used," then you're lying if the levitation is accomplished by Chromakey. But it's perfectly okay to say, "I'm going to put the three of clubs in my pocket" when in fact, the three of clubs is in your other hand and it's the jack of diamonds you're putting in your pocket. It's dishonest to edit out the moment when you actually snuck your assistant off stage…but if it really takes three minutes to make the elephant "vanish," some think it's okay to edit that down and make it look like they did it in thirty seconds.
Usually, it's injurious to the viewers' appreciation of an illusion to do cutaways. I'm guessing that the director or producers of America's Got Talent know that and decided to do it anyway. Their show is more about the judge's (and audience's) reaction to a performance than it is about the performance…so they felt the cutaways were important. Today's link is Jonathan and Charlotte doing the same feat on another show that didn't cut to reaction shots.
Again, you'll notice that Charlotte changes her outfit in the process. It's the most amazing part of the trick but many people are so dazzled by the main switch that they don't notice it. I asked her once why she why she did it and she smiled and said, "To make the trick more difficult." Good reason.
