Tools for Magic-Making: On Green Screens and Magic Shows for the Cyber-Stage
Image: Ioulex for The New York Times
written by Katharine Matthias - July 3, 2020
The transition to online virtual performance has led to a reimagining of spectacle on the cyber-stage. In particular, the green screen has become a new landscape for illusion-making and exploring three-dimensionality on the two-dimensional Zoom stage. Magic shows during this pandemic have also continued to explore how to create spectacle on the screen.
The green screen certainly provides helpful and exciting ways to approach design on a virtual platform. While many Zoom shows utilize the green screen to create a sense of setting and place, other theatrical effects and tricks can also be explored. For example, digital artist and content creator Tommaso Manca (@tommamaso) uses the green screen on Instagram to play with illusion. In his video, Manca applies a green substance to his face and starts to disappear into the screen behind him. Through this use of the reveal, Manca transforms the two-dimensional screen into a three-dimensional one.
Please refer to Manca’s instagram account to refer to the work mentioned. Further, Manca’s work takes inspiration from video artist Peter Campus’ “Three Transitions” (1973). In Peter Campus’ “Three Transitions,” he experiments with using multiple video streams in unconventional ways. Campus and Manca’s explorations with video and projections -- and their use of the reveal with the green screen -- makes these two visual artists into magicians.
Magic shows, in fact, have been a source of discovery and innovation in virtual live performance. For example, The New York Times critic Alexis Soloski reviews several virtual and live magic shows in a recent article “Is the Hand Quicker than the Zoom window?” Soloski writes about the Portuguese illusionist Helder Guimarães and his virtual show “The Present” at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and notes how the reveals and illusions in Guimarães’ show is the critic’s closest experience to pre-pandemic theater. Further, in an interview with theater critic Greg Evans from Deadline.com, Helder Guimarães explains that some of the illusions he has crafted requires interactivity with the audience. Guimarães limits the show to twenty-five audience members per performance and, before the show, he sends each audience member a box through the mail that includes a deck of cards, a printed number that refers to each audience member, and a few other paper items. Guimarães then interacts with audience members through these materials. Through the immersive nature of this performance, Guimarães transforms the audience into a magician’s assistant and connects to the audience through the screen.
Both magic tricks with the green screen and video and magic tricks with the audience highlight how new kinds of spectacle and illusion can be achieved on cyber-stage.
