Copperfield conjures new tricks from tech
LAS VEGAS — We found world-renowned magician David Copperfield on the floor of the recent Consumer Electronics Show here, spending three days looking for the latest tech breakthrough.
Perusing robots, levitating music speakers, virtual pets and so much more, "I look for possible applications that can be used in my work and not be seen as tech," he says.
After meeting at CES, Copperfield, who has amassed an $800 million fortune performing to sellout crowds 40 weeks a year here, according to Forbes, invited us to his private International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts. The structure, off the Strip, is home to his rare $200 million collection of magic memorabilia.
Tech and magic
At CES, "over and over, not just the spectators, but all the spokesmodels," demonstrated a product, and said it worked, "just like magic," he says.
Copperfield finds the connection between tech and magic an obvious one. He looks to bring tech dreams to life on stage. "I'm trying to do science fiction live. At CES, I get inspired to do that — to make things that 10 years from now will be a reality at CES."
E-mail tricks
Copperfield found fame doing TV specials in which he performed illusions such as making the Statue of Liberty disappear and flying across a stage seemingly without wires. Now, his big wow is doing e-mail and Twitter tricks (we promised not to reveal the conclusion, to keep it a surprise) and performing with a tech-savvy alien from outer space.
The e-mail trick is "using things people are comfortable with," he says. On stage, the longtime performer has changed his style due to the second screens out there. "The world has changed," he says. "I used to go out and speak to the audience, and now they talk back to me, they tweet me. Now, it's a conversation."
Magic invented the movies
At Copperfield's museum, he has several vintage automatons from the Georges Melies era, little mechanical machines that entertain. Melies was one of the earliest filmmakers, using special effects as illusions to astound people. Copperfield says it was magicians like Melies who invented movies. "Cinema was a magic effect," stripping together singular photos to become a moving picture, he says.
"We invented it as a piece of magic — then storytellers took it further," he says.
Copperfield's devices
Copperfield walks the CES floor with an iPhone 6 Plus in an Otterbox case and the current iPad, the device that Steve Jobs introduced in 2010 as "magical." Is it really magical? "Of course," Copperfield says. "It's amazing. I don't know how I lived without it."
The iPad contains his collection of video clips shot by his staff of the stage show the night before. "I'm watching and tweaking my illusions," he says. "The smoke didn't work here. The illusion got exposed here. Now I can see what I've done and try to improve."
He also uses the Solidworks eDrawing app ($1.99, Apple, Android.) on both devices to create 3-D models of potential new illusions. He taps into his webcams that monitor the 11 islands he owns in the Bahamas ("they're cool to have, but I rarely look") and loves the alternative taxi app Uber, which isn't available in Nevada.
As for his Otter case, ever the showman, he throws it on the floor to show how it won't crack. "This is great, but I'm waiting for the waterproof case," he says. "It would be great on my island."
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