No Pain. No Sadness. Only Magic.
 

Therein hides the key. What are you hiding from our audience? Sadness? Stage fright? Lonliness? Depression? It's a given: Your production design, photography, editing and timing are awesome. But do you have two lives? That is what I'm getting here. Are you saddened by your audience disassociating themselves with you as fellow human beings? Is this a phenomenon exclusive to many live stage entertainers? You have showed us a piece of the real you in this movie. You've succeeded. All aspects excellent. Thank you for such a touching an emotional piece. I look forward to more of your movies.

Then again, I could have missed the entire point and if so, I am truly sorry.

Thank you for your feedback, Alex, Mugurel, Dick, and Hugo! It really means a lot to see that people are enjoying the parts of my work that I am very passionate about. Glad you saw the color grading, too! A subtle, but effective device, I believe.

Hugo -- I think you hit the point of the piece right on the nail. At first, I misread your post (your unneeded apology threw me off), but you touched upon one of the key points that has been stirring some conversation on the film...

I talked to a friend of mine about it last night. The magician feels a disconnection from the audience, and comments that "they will never know". That works on a couple of different levels -- for the audience in the movie, as well as the audience watching the film. I chose not to illustrate all of the details of what he is going through, because, well, "they will never know". If we show all that he is going through, then the magician suddenly becomes connected to the audience, and I wanted to leave that until the curtain opens (and no sooner). It was an intricate detail that took me days to figure out -- how much do we show to both the 'in-film' and the 'real' audience? I could only conclude that by leaving a chunk of the extended storyline up to the audiences' assumptions, we keep the "mystery" of his ordeals intact, and stay true to his effort of keeping all of that from his audience.

That was the comment I came up with... but it's still not as good an explaination as yours, Hugo.

Thank you again, to all. Cheers.

Joseph:

I only wish my own movies can be as deep, multifaceted and meaningful as yours.

Hi Joseph,

Dick Mays said what I've been thinking about this film (almost word-for-word; guess we think alike in some ways, eh Dick? :).

Since almost all the superlatives have been taken, I'll simply add the one that went through my mind the first time I saw it and still holds...Masterpiece.

AMAZING!!! What else can I say... This really is a masterpiece. It can't get any closer to perfect than this... CONGRATULATIONS! :-)

Joseph, perhaps I am not alone in this, is it possible we could get a download-able version of your entry? :) Would certainly enjoy having it in my library in good quality.

I too would really enjoy seeing this in a high res version. Great piece. You obviously spent a far amount of time on it. I love the shot with the curtain going up. Hands down my number 1 vote for this contest. Excellent work and I look forward to seeing more in future competitions.

Lorinda,

It's the difference between C and C++...

Yours is the same as my thinking, but with just the addition of "class."

Again, thanks all for your enthusiasm on this piece -- it really inspires me to go out and shoot more.

I will have a downloadable version for your enjoyment tonight.

Oh, and Hugh... sorry, I've been calling you Hugo all this time. Whoops... haha!

As promised...
 

... you can download a high resolution version at www.movingtrainpictures.com.

Thanks and enjoy!

Joseph, thank you so much for the download version. Excellent work once again!

This post took me longer to compose than it should have, only because I was typing up an elaborate question that was answered immediately when I viewed the film again. I'm dumb like that sometimes.

I really love that H.264 version, it looks gorgeous, and has landed along with the Youtube version in my now-five-and-a-half-gig DVC collection.

Congratulations, Joseph, you've earned the win. Bravo! Encore!