Thanks to everyone who contributed to the post yesterday. The stats do indeed suggest that confessing make many people feel better.
The lovely Phillis over at Derren Brown’s Blog directed me to this great illusion from the Telegraph
Any ideas on how it is being achieved?
She’s on the carpet in the far background. Top of the legs (where they “join” the seat) look a bit photoshopped. The shadows are all wrong too, e.g., she should be casting a shadow across him.
I suppose that depends on the lights, considering it is set up they may have two lights by the camera facing otuwards.
At a guess I’d say she’s on the floor over near the window and they just use a clever effect of shapes and angles to make it look like the metal plate she’s sitting on is a seat attached to the legs that are in front of the man.
Very well done, with the quality of the picture here and at the Telegraph I couldn’t really find any visual clues as to how it’s done so I am just extrapolating from past experience of similar visual effects and illusions.
Perspective.
She’s seated on the top part of the chair in the background while he stands with the framework of the chair in the foreground.
It looks great from this one angle.
Alternatively, she was shrunken by his magical powers.
_
The seat with the woman on it is seperated and further in the back on the ground. The leggs of the chair are exactly cut so they appear to connect under the seat. (And maybe a bit of photoshopping to correct little errors…)
That is what I think.
The top part of the “chair is on the carpet further away. Only the legs, cut to make the illusion work) are in the foreground with the man.
Midget.
I was thinking midget as well but then I realized that he is just a giant and she’s normal.
The shadows from the chair “legs” on the right is what gave it away for me.
What the others said. You can even undo the illusion if you focus on the shadows in the right side of the picture. You can see how the chair is put together.
And there’s a reflection of the chair back and her head on the floor plate.
One word….photoshop.
Shouldn’t the headline say “Great chair illusion”? I don’t see a table?
Look at the shadow to the right of the “chair”. You can see a post that ends abruptly: so it seems the 4 legs of the “chair” are just metal posts, and the top of the chair she is sitting on is in the background.
Yep, and you can even see the chair back throwing a shadow on the drapes, extremely well done though. If there’s any photoshop work in there, it’s just touch-ups.
Oooh I really love this one, very clever!
*Spoiler alert*
If you want to see the same shot from a different angle, you can see the full photo set at the AP site. Obviously that makes it somewhat easier to see how it’s done though! http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?sh=10&st=k&remem=x&kw=DRE111&intv=1w
What illusion? All they’ve done is find a pixie
Reminds me of the ‘Making of’ of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movies…
That’s a bit harsh on her.
I had the same thought as Anonymous (perhaps the most quoted figure in history) did. In the cast commentary for the films (which I will admit to having seen numerous times) they call it “forced perspective” where a scene with Gandalf/McKellan talking face to face with Frodo/Wood would have G/McK standing about 2 or 3 feet closer to the camera than F/W, and stuff like chairs were made where one side was a good few inches taller than the other side.
I think credit where it’s due, you don’t notice this at all during the films, and I think the above example is also very good, but if you follow the shadow for the front right leg it just stops where there should be the shadow from the seat base. Very nice though.
I think the seat part of the chair along with the top back part of by the window while the legs are in front of the fan. Angles.
Follow the link to the Telegraph, then click “Next”. Very clever.
That’s quite impressive. It looks like there are two competing depth cues going on – one for the familiar size of the chair and one for the familiar size of the person? The chair cue wins out. Perhaps because the person is “sitting” on it.
If you look at the top of the two chair legs nearest the camera, you can see they don’t quite have the angle right, but very nicely done nonetheless.
It’s similar to how they did some of the hobbit effects in Lord of the Rings.
Well the seat of the chair doesn’t look like it’s actually attached to the legs of the chair. So at a guess the seat is unattached and in the background.
I’ve already seen the reveal on this. What I love about it is the steel plate on which the chair rests. If the plate wasn’t there, then the illusion would be nowhere near as potent, even though it seems unrelated to the mechanics of the effect.
if you look at the shadows.. youll directly see that the legs of the “seat” and the backsupport are not connected , wich indicates seperate objects
then its just a matter of finding the right angle and there you go =D
It’s a shame the photographer didn’t have his/her lens set up better. The difference in focus between the two people gave the game away almost immediately.
Still a great bit of trickery-pokery though
You can also see the reflection of her head in the metal plate clearly showing she is back by the windows.
Looks like Jimmy Krankie just came out of retirement.
Reminds me of Walter Wicks Optical tricks: http://www.walterwick.com/opticaltricks_goingup_bts.htm
Without reading the other comments, my thoughts are that she’s sitting on a large ‘top half’ of the chair further down the room, and he’s in front of (and stretching his hand over) a half chair with pointy ends to the ‘legs’, so that it seems to connect up.
…Aaand reading the comments, I seem to be thinking the same as everyone else
When first viewing the picture I immediately questioned the following: why the steel plate was on the floor and why is he not touching the top of of the subjects head? Conclusion: because she is not sitting on the seat of the so said chair.
The other part of the illusion that I didn’t see mentioned is that the top part of the chair she is sitting on had to be made to a larger scale than the corresponding lower half to look the right size from farther away.
Hey, she is on the floor and so is the chair. the chair is not a chair but a flat reprensentation of one. It could be made out of metal or it is simply the drawing of one. Very clever, would not work if we were to look form a slighly difft point.
i part agree with that. if you look carefully the woman is sitting on something metal and flat with a backrest at a particular angle to make it seem asif she is sitting on a chair. the legs of the chair are simply drawn on to give the illusion that the two are connected. this shot could only work in that angle, any other way and it wouldn’t be an illusion
The immediate reveal for me was the slightly shadowed area of carpet (directly ‘below’ the seat in the geometry of the intended illusion, directly towards the camera in the actual geometry) giving the visual clue that the seat and woman were on the carpet in the background.
Regarding the commenters who suggested that Photoshop may have been used for touchup … if it was, then in my opinion there’s no reason at all for the photograph to have been taken. The illusion only has that sparkle of ingenuity and cleverness if it’s an unaltered photo. From an artistic point of view, if one was going to manipulate the image to remove the “tells”, that’s as inelegant as generating the illusion completely with image manipulation. (Besides, I’d be disappointed if the artist took the trouble to “clean up” the leg interfaces and didn’t do the same with the shadows.)
Once you realise that she is looking directly at him everything falls into place.
the woman is on seat without legs in the backround. The legs are infront of the man. They are lined up to look like the seat is one with legs. =)
I totally understand the concept of what is happening here, my eyes just won’t see it though. maybe I am tired
Nice trick. I’ve seen a similar thing done for a music video I saw recently:
Be forewarned, it’s hip hop for those who are adverse to that type of music. No bad language though, he’s not that kind of rapper.
could this be how derren brown prodicted the lottery. i notice that the 2 cameras he used are the same angles as the ones used for the above illusion
Do you have to close one eye when viewing it live? Will binocular vision ruin the illusion?
Just wondering.
-Sean
Hope this doesn’t come off as shameless self-promotion, but the answer is here. The first vid gives it away. I love this stuff so damn much!!!! Thanks Richard.
the chair legs are leaning toward the carpet far away so she looks smaller?