Teller
Creator archive / 2 posts
Tim's Vermeer
A sloppy film in many respects, but its formal shortcomings do little to diminish how fascinating its subject’s single-minded obsession is. Reading some of the more prominent critiques of said subject in the Guardian and the New York Times, which describe Tim Jenison as a philistine whose attempted deconstruction of Vermeer’s technique is an act of denigration, I was struck by how willfully they miss the point. Jenison makes no bones about being a dilettante,… See more →
As Much Trouble as It’s Worth
A quick thought about design as sleight of hand.
In an article for Smithsonian magazine, renowned magician Teller (of the duo Penn & Teller) offers a handful of guiding principles for altering an audience’s perceptions. This one is my favorite:
Make the secret a lot more trouble than the trick seems worth. You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest.
This is the stuff great… See more →