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Chris Ramsay makes David Blaine holding his breath for ten minutes look even better


July 5, 2018

Whatever you may think of YouTube magician, Chris Ramsay, he and his crew know their way around a camera. That skill is in full display in the clip above, in which Ramsay takes some footage of the always amazing David Blaine and gives it a bit of the old YouTube pzazz.

The clip was part of a larger video, or a “vlog” as I’m told by several people who should know better, detailing Ramsay’s trip to see Blaine perform in Montreal. The first few minutes of footage are the usual YouTube-filler: Lots of quick cuts, rampant consumerism, and undersatured holiday footage accompanied by that weird elevator-music-for-cool-kids you hear all over the internet now DMCA take-downs are a thing. The big man himself pops up at 4:30, and that’s where things get interesting. Watching Blaine perform is a pleasure as usual, but it’s really cool to see his work shot with the same rough intensity as modern street magicians, rather than in the tepid style of a early morning talk show.

Blane even drops a little nugget of wisdom for aspiring magicians near the end of the video: “make failure your friend, your best friend.”