The Neuroscience of Illusion

I don't know if it's an original quote, but George Lucas once said The secret to film is that it's an illusion. And it's certainly the truth. At ColorBurst Video, we are big fans of magic and know a few tricks of sleight-of-hand that we've practiced in addition to the special effects. That's why a recent article on Wired.com caught my attention and I wanted to share it with you. It features incites from Teller of Penn and Teller, along with some video clips of their magic act.

For Teller (that's his full legal name), magic is more than entertainment. He wants his tricks to reveal the everyday fraud of perception so that people become aware of the tension between what is and what seems to be. Our brains don't see everything—the world is too big, too full of stimuli. So the brain takes shortcuts, constructing a picture of reality with relatively simple algorithms for what things are supposed to look like. Magicians capitalize on those rules. Every time you perform a magic trick, you're engaging in experimental psychology, Teller says. If the audience asks, How the hell did he do that? then the experiment was successful. I've exploited the efficiencies of your mind.

See the full article on the Neuroscience of Illusion at Wired.com.

Back to the Future in Typography

If you haven't heard of your favorite movie scenes being redone in typography, then you need to see this one first. There are a lot of these now. I believe that the first one was done with a Pulp Fiction scene. But this version done with Back to the Future is a classic.

And Now Presenting... MANAMANA - Original 1969 Version

Ah, a classic.

Source: Google Video

Capturing Lightning in Action

~ Fun EZ Photography ~
Originally uploaded by ViaMoi

There have been a lot of wild and active thunderstorms in the last few weeks here in the midwest. I'm interested in methods for catching a lightning bolt on film (er, disk). I think about it every time I see a nice bright flash. I stumbled upon this shot and link and I thought I'd share.

With my last lightning upload, many commented on my speed and reaction time. It's a lot easier than that and I hope you can grab a few like this one after reading below.

Scary Mary Poppins

Editing is everything. If you don't believe this, you've got to see one of Disney's most beloved children's stories recut as a trailer for a horror movie. This is a true masterpiece of editing and the proper choices of sound effect and music score --all in just over one minute and six seconds.

Epson Stylus Pro 7880 ColorBurst Edition

Here's a pretty nice photo printer that by Epson. Sometimes for certain projects that go beyond the standard 8.5" x 11", you need a Large-Format Color Inkjet Printer. This unit has you covered. It's fast and has full photo quality.

Epson Stylus Pro 7880 ColorBurst Edition

Here at ColorBurst Video, we recommend Epson. Check it out on Amazon.com!

Camera Trick Challenge

I love a good magic trick, don't you?

It's clearly a viral video, but they aren't lying when they warn you at the beginning that it hasn't been edited in any way. The answer to how this one was done has already been posted in the comments and video responses on YouTube. But I urge you to watch the short video all the way through (1:43) and see if you can't reason out how it was done. It's not that hard, but it is very clever on their part. Good luck, and let me know what you think!