Designer: Michael Grandinetti
Builder: Bill Smith
A life sized portrait (1:1 scale featuring the full body of a person) is displayed onstage, resting on an elevated stand on an elevated platform. The audience can see under and behind the portrait at all times. The entire platform is turned so that the thin side of the flat portrait frame faces the audience. The magician extends a cloth, running perpendicular, between himself and the frame and a light illuminates the cloth from behind. Visibly, in shadow on the cloth, a hand is seen to reach out from the two dimensional portrait. The magician reaches forward, grabs the emerging hand, and pulls the girl visibly out of the portrait. The cloth is dropped and the audience can see that where the girl once was in the portrait, only a white silhouette remains. Now standing on the platform, in front of the portrait, is the real, live girl.
This unique combination of the portrait to life effect with the visible shadow techniques, built to true life scale and showing a person's full body, was designed by Michael Grandinetti in 1996 and built by Bill Smith's Magic Ventures in April 1997. This effect is similar to David Devant's "Artist's Dream" illusion.
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