Magician Breaks Down his 10 BIGGEST Illusions!

Folks, welcome back i’ve been dying to do this video for a long time, and i don’t know why i’ve waited so long to do this. But, as some of you may know, i’m somewhat of a magician and last year i filmed a magic show with three of my best friends called big trick energy, which aired on true tv. You can now see it on netflix, canada or hbo max, which is a pretty big deal. You know younger chris would have been freaking out by now. My favorite thing about this show all time.

The thing that i would gladly do again are the cold opens now. What are the cold opens? You speak of ramsay. Basically, they are about 45. Second, magic tricks that are shot on one camera with one camera angle, only no camera cuts whatsoever.

What you see is what you get. These are elaborate magic tricks at the beginning of every show. We show you one of these big grandiose cold opens and at the end of the show, we show you how we did it, which i think is the coolest thing in the world. It was one of the best ideas we had we’re gon na go through all 10 amazing, one-shot cold opens and we’re going to see exactly how they worked. So, if you’re here for this leave a like subscribe and just before, we get into that, i’m gon na use this opportunity to plug my tour big trick.

Energy is going on tour me and alex eric and wes are going on a cross-canadian magic tour. We’Re doing four cities right now: victoria vancouver calgary in toronto. Hopefully we can add more uh cities to that we want to do winnipeg. We want to do montreal. We want to do all the little cities in between obviously as well, but for now we have four dates.

Also leave a like subscribe and comment below. I’M choosing one of those comments. If you’re in canada and i’ll send you a free pair of tickets, so you can come check out one of our one of our live shows in person. This is actually our podcast studio, western iowa podcast here. So, if you’re not already subscribed to our podcast bottom of the barrel, check it out it’s for adults.

Only here we go, i don’t know what order these are in, but we’re gon na have a look at them, one at a time: [, Music, ]. Oh, this one’s fun is alex rocking out on the guitar coming down the stairs. He was actually playing the guitar for this all right setting up something on the wall here. Remember, there’s no cgi! Here.

What you see is what you get [ Music ] and it falls come on that is pretty darn dope. So what happened there? First of all, i want to give a huge shout out to daniel garcia rico della vega, marcus eddie. These guys were our magic consultants. Uh we all worked super hard on this and, however many takes it took we needed to get it right, so these were long days.

You’Ll see us celebrating in the end when we get it, but here’s actually how this trick worked very sneaky. This is a bit of a camera angle trick bit of a zack king trick. If you will [ Music ], so you got alex playing the guitar. Here’S the exposed angle we’re coming down now notice on the top there’s a gap in the wall. There’S no wall.

There notice right there look, there’s just a mat now, you’re, probably thinking to yourself. Well, that’s a camera trick because you then went and cgi’d it into the in into the shot which we didn’t you’ll see: [ Music ], look at eric pulling on the uh pulling on the string, which then releases the magnets which drops the paper down. We celebrate and we get it now, watch watch as the cat look see. [ Applause ] the amazing magic team that we had um actually used a piece of plywood there. I painted it exactly and you can see it was painted exactly like the wall.

So everything from the red here that matches here i mean just a perfect match uh such an amazing amazing illusion that we pulled off there. So that’s one example: over cold opens: let’s have a look at the next one, this one’s pretty cool watch all the things that happen again. This is one shot. We sped it up because of time. This is one shot.

I’M trying to solve this rubik’s cube. Alex comes in, doesn’t even look at the rubik’s cube mind you solves it, i’m in utter disbelief, moving on again one shot, there was no camera cut there. I know it looks like one, but trust me. It was just sped up because oh look at that stacks. Those dice as if it was nothing [, Music, ] again he’s trying to make a card castle here takes two seconds makes a great car castle.

Wes is flipping out a little fist bump. That’S a nice touch. You’Ll see why you got the bunny dancing now watch this boom. No camera cuts, that’s all one shot. That is unbelievable.

That looks so good. Any guesses leave your guesses below. If you guessed, the whole thing was shot in reverse then you’re right now for a one. Take reverse shot. I think this one took us the most takes out of all of the tricks.

Probably probably a good 20 takes alex had to learn how to walk backwards. Naturally, this is probably for the magic part of it is the easiest out of all of the cold opens we’ve done, and the reason for that is because all we had to do was disassemble the things that were already there. You’Ll see rewind. So this is how we start this is the beginning of it. So this is how it actually starts.

He puts that there we actually fall back into a foam pit. All right, that’s the appearance. At the end that you see we run into our places. He’S already got the card pyramid done; all he has to do is destroy it. The fist bump coming into that, though, was so good, like we had to plan everything out in reverse, like he had to be happy alex was there before he saw him then be confused same thing.

With this, the dice was stacked. Already, the rubik’s cube was already solved. All he had to do was mix it up and then go back there, and that was it, but it looks simple and easy, but trust me remembering to do everything in reverse is very complicated. So that was the reverse trick. We had that idea since the beginning, we’ve always wanted to pull off like one where we just do everything backwards and it turned out pretty good.

I think this one is my all-time favorite, i think close to being my all-time favorite. Maybe my all-time favorite uh one because we got to dress up in cool, suits it’s very cinematic, but most importantly, this was the most dangerous thing, probably that we’ve done now. There was a few dangerous things, but this was right up there with one of the most dangerous things that we’ve done during the show, and uh and you’ll see why, when the method is revealed for now, pay attention to everything around us notice that there’s nothing we’re In an empty warehouse right now remember that keep that in mind: let’s go or alex yeah, or that one or the other i mean they were both. They were both kind of fun. To be honest, like that whole day for me, was absolutely hilarious.

There was nothing better than yeah. I couldn’t believe it we’re just rambling at this point: [ Music, ], [, Laughter, ], [, Music, ]. Look at this fancy guy. I like how that works. Huh really good now look around us last time over there and then it doesn’t matter all of a sudden.

The entire place is populated. That was, and are you guys hungry? Well, i think i think [ Applause, ] [, Music, ] i’ll, tell you right now. A lot of people are probably thinking. Well, you know you just everybody walked in off camera and, although that’s half of it, the other half is much more entertaining.

Here’S how it really worked behind us was a 3 000 or 2 000 pound wall that had a hole in it. Similar to you ever see, buster keaton, you know when the uh, when the thing falls down and he’s standing through the window, the camera work we’re actually turning the table here to move the camera around. It’S on a giant, uh lazy. Susan, look at this! That wall was like seven inches away from alex to the back of alex’s head by the way those people now come in because those chairs tables and everything else were glued to that wall and now everybody’s being populated around and as the camera moves back, you get To see that final shot on the left, with everything being populated and fulfilled, that was such a cool idea.

Oh so happy about that. That was uh like i said one of my favorites in terms of being cinematic, it looked so amazing uh. It looked like a movie, the magical effect itself, i don’t think was the strongest. I don’t think this is one of those like we’ve had some. Some of these cold opens were great, were better magic tricks.

Some of them were better explanations, and some of them were both. This one happened to be a better explanation. The magic trick, i think, fell flat a little bit uh because you don’t really you’re not paying attention anything in the background until there’s things in the background. So you don’t really know what’s happening when you see the explanation you’re like oh, my god, and that’s kind of what i liked about this one. Sometimes the method is better than the effect and that’s something that i still believe for a lot of magic tricks.

Uh to be next one, the magical door come on. Man shut the door eric getting a butt tattoo feel free to guess how this trick was done by the way [ Music ]. I had to mime all of this such bad acting and the final piece of the puzzle. [, Music, ], one shot baby one shot. It’S pretty crazy to think about that.

That’S that’s one shot one continuous shot. This was actually an idea. Our friend spidey came up with. He had a different idea where we’d move it back and forth, and different rooms would change. But essentially this was his idea.

We had the prop department build this, and so we always had this magical bunny behind the scenes. By the way, i don’t know if you’ve noticed he’s a bit of an easter egg. So the golf cart then pulls this away. Wes has to go get dressed. Then eric i had the easiest job.

Arguably, and then you see, eric’s pants are actually falling down, he’s got to go, get ready, alex had to run the fastest because he was the last one out. This is pretty great man good times, so he runs this way. Now, there’s a team actually grabbing a platform there, because i had to walk straight out so shout out to that team as well now, everybody’s already sitting down and waiting for me and [ Music ] those beer cups were empty. There was no beer waiting for us. Unfortunately, not bad pretty cool one take man.

This is fun all right. Let’S keep going. This was the first idea that we ever had when we pitched so we filmed. We got to film a pilot. After this pilot episode, we actually got picked up for nine other episodes, so this was the very first one we shot.

We shot this months before the rest of the show. This was such a great idea. We were in a junkyard there’s as you you’re, going to see in a second, there was an opera singing there. It was just such a cool contrast of of classy and garbage, and, and it really represents us well, i think so check out this one shot. [, Music ], the camera worked by the way, epic.

This is tim, our camera guy. I believe he was a beast: [: Music, ], [ Applause, ], [, Music ]. We walk into individual porta-potties here. That was probably one of the most dangerous things we’ve done: classic west shut the door uh again one of the most dangerous things we’ve done uh. There was a car hanging about 10 feet over our heads.

You know at the moment that this car came crashing down. We were right beside that car. Something could have gone wrong there. It was very dangerous. We did this stunt over and over and over obviously without the car uh to make sure we made sure we were safe, but it was.

We were losing daylight, like we had to get this angles. Were everything as you’ll see here you got a cool overhead shot, [ Music, ] notice. The last porta potty has like a bit of a wall there. This band was awesome, [, Music ]. They were actually singing [ Music, ], [ Applause ].

We had a time our walks as well. Everything was perfectly timed here. You see us leaving at the back, but there was there was garbage placed here here and here strategically, so that we could walk between it. Turn the corner – and you wouldn’t see us and that had to be just right, as you can see those lumps of garbage up here we move around to here now we all had to funnel in car drops and that’s when we all kind of funneled into this. Last porta potty and made the big reveal at the end shut the door, [ Applause, ] and now we’re all happy so much fun.

This was one of the cooler ones. It was cool because um we got to work with a whole bunch of other people, really talented cheerleaders here that were like doing flips and stuff, and there was this massive choreography that we literally came up with the day of aside from the magic trick. All everything else had to be sort of this choreography and camera work again, shout out to tim, shout out to charlie and all the other camera guys here, because those guys worked their butts off getting these shots and the very first, the very first frame here is Just eric ready, okay man, i laugh every time we got ta watch it again. I’Ll explain to you what i didn’t like about this after, when i’m watching it. Here’S the bunny boom.

Remember all one shot: [ Music, ], look at the cheerleaders in that look at wes. I don’t even know what he’s doing his head with his head. Here we go west hit to top that’s pretty good illusion. [ Applause, ], here’s the thing – and this is something we fought against, but they ruled against us – is you’re gon na see how this trick works notice. The grass here there are no seams, they cgi’d what you’re about to see on the floor because they didn’t want anybody getting suspicious.

I personally voted against it because i thought who cares if people see how i don’t think they’re really paying attention to the grass um. So that’s my personal gripe as a magician and you’ll see why it was cold out there by the way the poor, cheerleaders are freezing, see. Look at the grass see what i mean see. It didn’t really bother me and there you go so this here. That’S right!

There basically eric’s gon na lay on this giant frame, which is hooked up to this pole, which swivels around, and this is basically we couldn’t dig in the ground. So we had to use fake grass over because we’re on like a soccer field or a football field, uh and basically that’s anchored to the ground so that that’s not moving. I cover this pole with my body strategically and that’s kind of how we went about it. So again, camera work angles choreography. You can kind of see it if you know what to look for but see the grass there, like, i didn’t even mind that she goes under, which is a nice touch, confetti cannon catch.

This is a really dope trick. [, Music ]. My my vote is if you’re gon na cgi, you know the first part of it cgi the second half of it or don’t cgi. Anything at all. That’S what i say.

Oh this one was fun. So, what’s going on in west’s head right now, classic eric not wearing his mask calm down buddy, it’s okay, calm, down, ready, [, Music, ], so good, [, Music, ]! Remember all one shot, so [ Music ]. So this whole thing works is a big choreography. Once again, with the camera uh once again uh, but, as you can see, you’ll see what’s going on here: [ Music, ] under the table.

We’Ve put this white sheet so instead of like using black art, as you can see here behind the table over here, uh there’s white panels so that we can go ahead and scoot behind those. So you won’t see us. I added an extra touch when we’re behind that curtain to sort of jump backwards and lift your feet, so it looks like you’re being sucked into nothing. You’Ll see here, whoop right there like that, so it just kind of like feels like you’re vanishing now. At this point, it’s all camera work west is acting and choreography we’re getting ready to go back to square one.

[ Music, ] wes gets the jacket on we replace the panel. Everything goes back to the way it was and scene so much fun, [, Music ]. That was actually our last day of shooting. It was our last day of shooting big celebrations. At the end, this was one of my favorites in terms of stylistically.

I really wanted uh the song white rabbit to be played during this, but the right to that was like a hundred grand and we couldn’t afford it. So we got like a similar song which is kind of okay, but also representative of the entire show, but it was good this rabbit by the way uh needed to act perfectly for this one shot added an extra element of intensity and things could go wrong. [ Music, ] yeah west dress, like velma over there [ Music ]. This all had to work in one shot again notice. The background.

Think of a card that you see most people would take ace of spades there. I feel [ Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music ] a giant card castle with eric on the top holding the ace of spades. This was actually mechanically one of the coolest tricks. We’Ve done. We all got to ride this giant uh card pyramid, which was a lot of fun so there it is.

It sits there perfectly in line perfectly in line with the horizon [ Music ]. So you can’t actually tell that it’s there [ Music ]. Now we were queued to turn the cards over all these little steps and everything in the camera work is just a lot. It doesn’t look like a lot, but here we go here goes eric. I mean come on.

When else are you gon na be able to sit on top of a giant car castle that was so much fun, [ Music ] that was so much fun, [, Music, ] west? Looking for a high five, this was one of my favorites in terms of sort of story. Our inspiration here was mary poppins, and we wanted all of the sort of illusions to be done with our bodies. Uh you’ll see what i mean in a second here. This is very, very cool.

Remember all one shot walk into the store. I see the boys, i toss the umbrella, hey, girls, sorry watch this all right. Camera goes around. This is pretty cool, as the bus goes by [, Music ]. So all pretty standard things.

You know he’s going to take the stairs here, little umbrella flip and i get hoisted up into the air and here’s how it went down. This is just amazing, choreography here so much fun chris like if we missed that umbrella toss, it would you it would all be over. So there’s a skateboard here, sorry that west is going to hop on so wes hops on the skateboard, that’s step one, and this is the same umbrella, so watch this wes now has to climb up as fast as he can as alex goes down. The elevator west is climbing up top eric’s next, the bunny’s helping he’s up there as well. He he actually tosses me this umbrella, which i have to catch off camera.

Now i come in i’ll, relax umbrella spin. Now, eric and alex are actually hoisting me up because they can’t actually pull me from the umbrella, because the umbrella would break and that’s just not sound, and i don’t want it to look like they’re grabbing my hands. So the first half of that levitation is eric and um alex lifting me and the second half of the levitation is them pulling me. So you get like the complete effect. You see my head levitate and then you see my feet levitate and that’s what creates that sort of magical effect goes up.

I’M a big boy. Those guys did good and then we nailed it so much fun. [ Applause ] – and this is the last one. This one, i think, was possibly my favorite because it involved some really talented people. It involved an entire crew.

The illusion is cool everything, sort of flows together and works properly, and it is a feat to behold. So here you go see if you can have any guesses at the method, while you watch [ Music, ], wow, [, Music ], these guys were amazing, chance more and forget the other guy’s name, griffin, chance and griffin. You guys are pro bmxers, [, Music ]. All right, [, Music, ] bam, no more bikes and wes and erica swapped places with the two bmx guys and here’s how that worked. This was so cool.

The illusion relies on a giant ditch being dug, but also on great camera work. Once again, charlie was uh manning the drone here, and so the drone starts off in his hands once the drone goes up there, that’s our cue to jump off the truck into the hole. This is alex filming on his phone. You can see here these guys leap in the air, and now they come down and jump over us who they almost hit the back of our heads there, and now we got ta, wait for our cube, such a cool illusion. Like you never see it, you never see that line of sight from that first shot, which again is credit to the camera work.

As soon as that gets lifted up, we run behind those two guys grab their bikes head back into the ditch [ Music ], hey voila, that’s one of the coolest man, those guys built that ramp just for this trick in their backyard. So there you have it guys, i mean come on. That’S pretty amazing! I’M super happy that i was able to do that with my best friends. It’S such a trip down memory lane looking at this and we had ups, we had downs but boy.

Oh boy, do we have fun on this journey and i invite you guys to spend some of the journey along with us on our canadian tour if you’re available again, i understand that we’re not doing any other countries right now, but if you can make it to Canada and come see us we’ll make it worth your while i promise you, we left the tickets to our show uh below thanks so much for watching guys. I appreciate all your support always have and it feels good to be back into some magic content again on this channel. Like this video subscribe and we’ll see, y’all the next one, all peace, i almost got the camera.