If you’ve ever seen Kevin Parry’s work, you might think he’s some kind of magician. He can fall flat on his face and turn into a banana. He can sneeze and burst into flames. He can jump into the air and transform into a pumpkin.
As a self-proclaimed “video wizard,” Parry’s creations have quite the magical touch – created through visual effects, including illusions and stop-motion animation.
“I try to make my videos look effortless and simple, but I want them to confuse people so much that they just have to watch it over and over,” he says.
To do that, Parry uses editing and trick camera work as part of his illusions.
The work is meticulous and sometimes extremely tedious, he says. For example, Parry once created a stop-motion animation of him riding a skateboard along a track. Behind the scenes, he took 360 photographs of himself lying down on the ground in different positions, using a camera attached to the ceiling. In another stop motion video, he decorated his Christmas tree 300 times to make the ornaments look like they are moving all over the tree.
“There’s usually a point halfway through my videos that I think, ‘am I an insane person?’” he tells CNN.
His illusions, which include turning himself into random objects, are also challenging to create. For example, a video of Parry turning into balloons involved filming himself for hours on end, ensuring the cuts fit perfectly into one another, and digitally recreating himself — all while making sure he didn’t get injured. The five-second clip took a week to put together.
For Parry, his hard work is all worth it. “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a magician,” he says. “Doing these kinds of video magic tricks is my way of being a magician finally.”
Watch the video for the full story