After watching a ‘50 greatest magic tricks’ show on E4 this evening (I can’t wait for thursday’s ‘magic tricks gone wrong’ show) and again being impressed by Penn and Teller’s Magic Bullet trick I googled the trick and found what appears to be a reasonable explanation.
For those of you who are interested I’ll post the explanation tomorrow, but you can find it out for yourself if you like…
So what happens?
In the Penn and Teller version the two guys stand on opposite sides of the stage. They never cross a distinct line in the centre of the stage. They select two audience members who come up onto the stage and examine the two bullets, verifying that they are real. They sign their initials on the tips of the bullets and draw something on the casing. They then load the bullets into the revolvers and let Penn and Teller get on with it.
What the audience sees is the two magicians in bulletproof gear lining up the laser dots on each others mouths and firing. Each bullet apparently passes through glass panels and are caught in the mouth of the magician on the other side of the stage.
The twi audience members then verify that the tips do have the relevant initials on them in the right place. The audience claps in astonishment.
So how is it done? There are various ways it can be done (including simply having the two audience members in on the act) but I believe (after trying to work it out then just reading other people’s theories last night) that the bullets shown to the audience members are fakes and that there are two other bullets.
Basically the guns do fire but the bullet tip (the bit that leaves the gun) is a fake made of wax which vapourises in the air but nonetheless produces the hole in the glass panel. Otherwise a small squid (tiny stage explosives used in theatre and film) detonated at the right moment could produce the same effect. So that covers the casing that remains in the original gun, the hole in glass and the tip signed by the audience member.
The actual tips (ostensibly 'recently fired bullets with the initials of an audience member on them) are duplicates. When the audience members sign their initials a cameraman is stood close, filming the process ‘for the benefit of the audience and the people at home’. What is actually happening is backstage the image is frozen and the initials copied by a dextrous stagehand who then places them in the bulletproof vests towards the rear of the stage (ostensibly ‘doing a safety check’). When the two magicians put the vests and helmets on they simply slip the copied tips into their mouths. They then clear everyone else off the stage, pick up the guns, line up the laser dots and fire…
This is remarkably simple, but a visually impressive trick. However it isn’t as impressive as Paul Daniel’s table tennis ball/lemon/orange routine with the cup. Hilarious, manic pace, banter with the audience, vastly unpredictable trick. I’ve been trying to find a link for a video of this routine but one isn’t available in any of the obvious places.