If my magic was strong, I'd teleport to Los Angeles this evening for "Like Magic," an event at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater where magician Ricky Jay, Hollywood special effects artist Shane Mahan, illusion engineer Michael Weber, and others will explore the historical links between cinema and magic. Indeed, Georges Méliès, famous for advancing the state of film technology in the earliest days of cinema, was a magician before he made movies. Above, a clip from Méliès's 1903 short film "L'oeuf du sorcier ou L'oeuf magique prolifique" ("Prolific Magic Egg") starring the director as a magician. The Like Magic event is at 7:30pm this evening and tickets are just $5 or $3 with a student ID. More details below. (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)
Using scenes from films including Georges Méliès's "The Magician" (1898), Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast" (1946), Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), Neil Burger's "The Illusionist" (2006) and Rupert Sanders's "Snow White and the Huntsman" (2012), the program will show how some of the techniques used in the earliest "trick films," such as trick perspective, cuts, dissolves and multiple exposures, are still used by filmmakers in the digital age. The night will include live demonstrations and conversations with some of the films' creative teams who will reveal how many of these scenes were created.
