Magic Is Dead, page 25
But I wasn’t here in Los Angeles to see the makings of another special featuring a magician, like David Blaine, who was already a household name. Magic’s latest cultural renaissance has not gone unnoticed by mainstream entertainment companies, especially those with a large streaming platform, and these corporations have been digging for fresh talent for new magic shows. In 2017, boosted by a $6 billion original content budget, Netflix commissioned its first series of nonscripted magic shows, to be aired the following year, including a comedy production from Justin Willman titled Magic for Humans, a one-off show from Derren Brown and the rerelease of two previously-aired specials, and an eight-episode series from young British magician Drummond Money-Coutts, better known as DMC.
DMC, tall and svelte with an aristocratic swagger in Savile Row suits and polished Oxford wingtips, is the heir-apparent to the Baron Latimer, a British bloodline that stretches back to 1492. He comes from the Coutts banking dynasty, which manages the British royal family’s money, and was obviously set up for a life of finance. But after interning at Goldman Sachs, DMC decided to become a magician instead, a passion he held since childhood. He’s starred in a few television programs in the United Kingdom on the National Geographic Channel, but as Netflix’s reach exploded (from 48 million subscribers in 2014 to over 100 million in 2017, half of whom live in the United States), DMC saw an opportunity to break into the American market.
DMC linked up with A. Smith Productions, which has created a variety of shows—from American Ninja Warrior to Hell’s Kitchen—and is credited with launching the reality food competition genre in the United States. They locked in a deal with Netflix for an eight-episode series titled Death by Magic, which documents DMC as he travels to a series of cities, performing street magic related to that city’s history. He also re-creates a stunt of some kind that has, in the past, killed someone in that place—utilizing magic, obviously, to escape the stunt unscathed—including going over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel and participating in a game of Russian roulette in Las Vegas. So: They had a strong show concept, backing from a reputable production company, and a deal with the biggest content provider on the planet. Now they needed a team to create the magic. That’s when they called Danny Garcia.
The elevator stopped, and I followed Danny down a nondescript corridor. He took out his keys to unlock the door at the end of the hall. “It’s pretty tight-ass up here,” he said. “We can’t have people coming in or out; none of this stuff can leak before the show is announced.” A. Smith’s wing, a small, nooklike cluster of offices, was filled with various producers. Some were working out scheduling, some equipment rentals, and even more organizing permits and other necessary paperwork. We walked by the worker bees toward the end of the wing and entered the biggest room. Four large tables lined the walls, and shelves were stacked with foam core, boxes of magnets, double-sided tape, X-Acto knives, construction paper, hot glue, paint, and dozens of decks of playing cards. It was like a magical arts-and-crafts funhouse.*
Danny, the lead magic consultant, brought on a team of in-house creators for the show, including his longtime confidants Marcus Eddie (who also consulted on Justin Willman’s 2018 Netflix special, Magic for Humans) and Alex Rangel (who has worked with Danny on David Blaine’s shows), as well as Jesse Feinberg, who was recommended by a mutual friend. Danny also enlisted his girlfriend and famed stage magician Lisa de la Vega, who has consulted for years for Cyril, the most famous magicians in Japan, and worked alongside Danny for David Blaine’s latest special. When I walked in, the team was already bent over their desks, hard at work on the next trick that needed to be invented and built.
“Ian!” Lisa called out, standing up from behind her desk. I had met both her and Danny during my last trip to Magic Live, which is when I got the invitation to come out to L.A. to watch them in action. She came over and gave me a hug.
“How are things going with the show?” I asked. Lisa was wearing many hats, including coordinating all the episodes’ finales.
“Oh, good,” she said. “Just fighting a damn cold and trying to line up everything for our next round of shoots.” I looked behind her and saw the six-month production schedule hanging above her desk. Block letters, in bold type, covered the entire month after the show was set to wrap. It read: SLEEP.
“So, what is everyone working on?” I asked.
Lisa turned to Danny. “Danny, what’s on deck for today again?”
“So, we have this master list of tricks that we need to film for each episode,” Danny explained. “We have some stuff that is just sleight of hand, that DMC can do without us having to build anything, but a lot of the stuff needs gimmicks or props or other apparatus, so that is what we are really trying to nail down today. Marcus is working on a menu that, when DMC opens it, will produce a full plate of hot food”—Marcus, hearing us, raised the menu and smiled—“Alex is making some molds for a wooden prop, and I think we’re going to try and get Jesse to make this card-castle thing I have been thinking about the past few weeks.”
Jesse, having just come back from the bathroom, walked into the room.
“You mind if I draw something out for you?” Danny asked Jesse. “Maybe it will help when you’re trying to build it?”
“Of course. I’ve been kind of racking my brain in how to make it work,” Jesse said.
Danny grabbed a whiteboard and a marker. He started sketching. “So, DMC is going to have this empty paper bag,” he said, drawing, “and we want, like, a cascade of card boxes to fall out of the bag and form a castle on the ground, with loose cards raining down on top of it.” He scribbled furiously at what he wanted the end product to look like. “I want a Willy Wonka–type look, where the amount of decks that fall out can’t possibly fit into the bag.”
Jesse nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I have an idea. I think I can make it work.”
I piped in. “I mean, how long do you guys have to finish all these tricks?” I pointed to the master list of effects, tacked on the wall. It was over ten pages long. “It seems like a lot of work just to figure out a method, not to mention having to build something that will be filmed and put on television.”
“It’s crazy,” Danny said. “It really is. Okay, so, let’s look at it this way: We have eight weeks to concept, design, and create dozens of pieces of magic, to be shot in eight cities around the world. We’re already slightly behind schedule for our next stop, Detroit, and we’re simultaneously trying to plan and finalize tricks for future cities like Miami and Las Vegas. And we have to keep everything at or preferably under budget.”
“Yup! Under budget!” Lisa shouted, laughing. I looked at them bug-eyed.
“Yeah, man,” Danny said, smiling. “Putting together a show like this is no joke.”
“So, how do you know what tricks you want to include? There seems so much to choose from, you know?”
“Well, I always start with the character, the star of the show,” he said. “So, to me, Drummond is the James Bond of magic, right? If James Bond did magic—the Daniel Craig version, a little rough but still composed—how would that look? How would he act? That starts painting a picture of how this character will evolve during the show. You have to manage both specific tricks and how they fit into the context of the character.”
“So, you want stuff that is a little more serious, perhaps even dangerous?”
“Yeah, exactly. And the theme of the show revolves around each city, so we are trying to build some effects that relate to that city’s history.”
“Right, kind of like how a travel show works.”
“Exactly. You have to make the place come alive a bit, too. Like, for Detroit, the theme is regeneration—kind of how this city is bouncing back after the collapse of the auto industry. So, to open the episode, we want to have DMC sitting at a table, toy car parts strewn in front of him. He’ll deliver some sort of short monologue about Detroit’s history as an automobile manufacturing hub that fell on hard economic times, with the broken and discarded car parts a visual representation of that struggle. He’ll take a box and place it over the parts. And when he removes the box, less than a second later, a fully formed car will be where the parts had once been—no camera tricks involved. Marcus is inventing that one.” Again, Marcus raised his hand with an exaggeratedly comedic smile spread across his face.
“So, you’re doing some tricks straight to camera, without spectators?” I asked.
“Yeah, man. We’re definitely getting a lot of inspiration from the type of magic done on Instagram right now,” he said. He was right: a lot of magic these days is designed to be performed for the camera—a by-product of magicians showing off their chops through social media. These are normally hypervisual illusions that don’t need an audience, or don’t rely on a complex plot. Social media has changed magic so dramatically; now it is altering how magic was portrayed on television. “And I think people at home will like it, because of the types of magic they are seeing on the internet these days, just scrolling through on their phone.”
I spent a few hours just observing the team—a fly on the wall. They worked intently, nonstop, even eating lunch at their desks. I felt like I was watching a team of sleep-deprived engineers collaborate on a big-time skyscraper rather than a group of magic geeks designing tricks. I got a little restless, grabbed a cup of coffee, wandered down the hall, and found director Simon Dinsell, who had previously directed shows for Derren Brown and Dynamo, in his office. I popped my head in and introduced myself.
“So, how do you see this show coming together?” I asked. “Danny and the team seem to be working really hard.”
“Well, with this type of show, we have to integrate amazing tricks into a solid structure. We are creating a multilayered show,” Simon told me. “You’ve got a high trick-per-minute ratio, but what happens when you don’t like magic? How can we still get you to watch the show? So, we’ve got this really nice narrative; we are basically making a magic show with the spine of a documentary. And I think that’s the unique thing about this show.”
“I feel like people are way more into that type of thing now, with the recent boom in character-driven documentaries.”
“Exactly. People want to feel like they are on a journey, you know? That’s the key to building a captivating show.” He checked his watch. “We have an all-hands production meeting in a few minutes. I have to get ready for it, but we’ll see you in there?”
“Definitely,” I said. I walked back to Danny’s bunker.
I followed Danny and Lisa down to the conference room, and more than a dozen members of the team filed in and took their seats. A large whiteboard anchored the far wall, and framed posters from other A. Smith shows, including Hell’s Kitchen, hung on the walls.
“All right, so, first order of business: Detroit and Las Vegas,” announced executive producer Martin Turner. “Those trips are coming up quick. What do we need to finish up? Let’s start with the magic,” he continued, turning to Danny. “What do we have listed for those episodes?” Danny and Lisa walked through every magic trick for the two episodes and discussed in detail all the elements needed to properly execute them. More broadly, the production team had to secure permits, licenses, rental equipment, lodging, food, and even a helicopter. Putting together a magic television show is a hectic, multipronged effort.
“So, just so we all know,” Martin said, “how many tricks can we squeeze into one day of filming?”
“Well—and anyone else, correct me if I am wrong—” Danny said, doing some mental math, “but I think, with all the moving parts, it could take four to six hours to film one trick, depending on what it is.”
“And what’s the crew count for these trips?” Martin asked.
Another producer jumped in: “They’ll be about thirty of us on set.”
“That doesn’t include actors or anything, right?” Danny said. “We should try and secure permits for locations where there’s a lot of foot traffic. If we need to bring people out somewhere for a trick, we have to make sure they aren’t actors of any kind. They just have to be regular people. An actor may try to put on a fake reaction, and that could be a problem. It all has to be genuine.” The team nodded in agreement. “And if we have to film more than one take, we need to bring in a new audience. We shouldn’t be using people who have already seen the trick.”
“We also have to make sure that the locations we choose fit well with how we want to film the segment,” Simon said. His job as director was to create a vision for how the show would look and feel when filmed. “The viewers at home also have to know what the hell is going on,” he said, “but we also can’t make it seem like we are using the camera to deceive them.”
“Yeah, like with the helicopter appearance in the desert,” Danny said.
Helicopter appearance? In the desert? Danny didn’t mention this one to me in the office.
“We have to make sure it doesn’t feel fake,” he added.
“I think we can definitely do that,” Simon said. “I agree that we can’t use any postproduction tricks to enhance the illusion. That wouldn’t be right.”
Danny passed around a diagram of how the illusion could be pulled off. “So, yeah, since we don’t have a helicopter on hand, there’s no way to really test this unless we are on location out in the desert,” Danny said.
Simon looked over the diagram and closed his eyes, visualizing where he’d set up the cameras. “So,” Simon started, holding the diagram in his hand, “if it’s a millimeter off, the whole thing is blown?”
Danny looked down at the paper and then back at Simon. “Yep. That’s basically it. We have one shot at making it work.”
The next day, Danny started working on a gimmick for a bill change, where a $1 bill instantly transforms into a $100 bill. It was an inconsequential trick, a filler moment between two larger skits, but he wanted to try something new in how it was to be filmed. He pitched Simon on having two cameras pointed at DMC, one from the front and another from the rear, over his shoulder. They could toggle back and forth and make the trick, or at least how it was presented on-screen, seem more impossible. A lot of bill-change tricks exist on the market now, which work perfectly fine but only when viewed from the front. If you’re behind the performer, the method is obvious. Danny built a few variations, using already developed methods. I watched him intently, his brow furrowing under his glasses, lips curled in grimace. It wasn’t working.
“I don’t think that design is going to work,” I said.
“Yeah, man, it’s tough because we are trying to push how this stuff is filmed, you know? It completely changes how we design a trick.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “Give me a minute.” I ran over to their rack of tools and materials, plunked down with a knife and some tape and a couple bills, and made a different version, one that worked from all different angles—and, with the wave of a hand, instantly changed the bill. It could be inspected by the audience, too. I finished my handiwork, stood in that little magical room, and pitched Danny my concept.
“Oh shit, bro!” Danny exclaimed, smiling. “That actually looks really good. Let me see it.” I gave him what I had crafted and he tried it out a few times in the mirror. Then he showed his team. “This is Ian’s idea. What do you guys think?” Marcus, Jesse, and Alex all nodded in approval. Lisa even called out, “Good one, Ian!” Danny held the prop in his hand, looked over at me, and said, “I’m gonna keep playing with this, dude. Let’s see if your idea will turn into something.”
After I left Los Angeles, Danny kept playing with the concept. At the last minute, my idea was scrapped—but to sit in that room with some of the best creators in the world, and to have a concept I created seriously considered for a Netflix show, proved one thing: my mind had become hardwired for deception; I was becoming one of them. And now I had to prove it where it really counted, where all the chips were on the table: in Vegas, in front of all my new friends.
22
Flipside
The gold lion stared down at me, mane tucked behind his ears, fangs nearly bared, as if ready to lunge and defend his kingdom—which, of course, was a casino.
The cab trickled past the statue and pulled under the awning that hung over the main entrance of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Bellboys scurried between cabs, corralled hotel guests, opened doors, and lugged suitcases. A woman handed off her purse to one boy, a skinny kid with a buzz cut, and shoved a pair of large Tom Ford sunglasses on her face, her skin glowing a deep bronze in the shard of light that ricocheted off the building’s glass façade. There are a few entrances to the hotel-casino, each anchoring a corner of its massive six-acre plot, but I thought I had chosen the correct one. I tightened the straps on my backpack, the fleshy grooves along my spine already pooling with sweat, and headed for the door. Three decks of cards in my bag’s main pouch jostled around like tiny paper bricks.
Ellusionist’s Adam Wilber told me to wait in the lobby, a glitzy white and gold room that extended to the casino, where its marbled floors turned to carpet. A boxing ring sat in its center, advertising an upcoming fight. I leaned up against a slot machine, my body clicking and buzzing to its demented, money-fueled mating dance, and waited for Adam to find me. When we spoke on the phone a few weeks earlier, he admitted that he had a packed schedule in Vegas. The team was tying up loose ends for the Christmas season and they needed to nail down a few projects during the trip. It’s smart for them to schedule filming and other back-end production duties around conventions; more than likely, any magician Ellusionist needs to meet will be there. If my trick was good enough, he told me—if he thought people would actually perform it—then they’d definitely squeeze me in. Film the whole project in Vegas. Done. No big deal.
