Foundation 33 // David Copperfield

[Music] welcome to Foundation for more episodes check out foundation. KR in this episode I sat down with David Copperfield an entrepreneur and also one of the greatest magicians of our time let's go talk to him thanks for agreeing to do this oh it's my pleasure this is awesome because um you know typically I have Tech entrepreneurs on the show yes and then I realized that uh when Tony Shay said that you were available I realized you're actually an entrepreneur as well um and I wanted to dig into that a little bit and talk about you know how you got started and uh kind of discover your whole history of uh of how you got to where you are today I think we're kind of all in the same business and we all uh uh try to push the envelope we all try to do things differently try to to have a take what we do well and and and change the world in our own little way whether we're a tech person or Entertainer or a communicator a writer um you know I started as a um as a very bad ventriloquist uh when I was a little kid and uh by watching this guy named Paul Winchell on TV and um he was he invented the artificial heart he had a patent for the artificial heart he was ventriloquist and he invented you know the first patent for the artificial art so it kind of inspired me to to to take entertainment and not just stop at that to think of applying you know my interests my loves my passions to as many other things you know years old I invented my first uh piece of magic that was published in this this encyclopedia pretty respected Encyclopedia of magic called Tarbell course of magic so my I was an inventor at Magic when I was 12 how did you what did you do at So at around 11 you're coming up with this um do you draw a diagram for how it'll work and you send it off to the company or how does that work it wasn't quite like that no it was this this was a trick with a flare pen remember flare pens mhm you don't remember yeah I know what flare pen is I'm 30 it it it had a unique quality that when you turn the pen the top the little white thing at the top would move with it so that provided part of the secret of the illusion so I discovered that you know if you did that and that started me thinking about how I can make a little mind reading effect with that so as a little kid that was you know the it was easy for me you know and uh uh when I was 16 years old I was I was teaching at NYU there was a little program the theater Department I teach the art in Magic and trying to to do that so magic the whole Magic part was very very easy and I know a lot of your Watchers you know find you know mathematics easy or they find just uh uh how to structure companies easyier all that kind for me just inventing magic creating that stuff or performing it was an easy thing for me um but my real passion was communicating with people my passion was telling stories everything that I um I wanted to be wasn't a magician I wanted to be uh ORS noells I wanted to be uh Frank Kaa great film directors Frank Sinatra uh performers Jin Kelly and Fred a I wanted to to do what what they were how they were making me feel when I saw a movie a great movie Wizard of Oz I could really move uh be moved as an audience but I was good at Magic I I was kind of screwed because you know like how am I going to take magic and do that with it um so I had to find a way of of of combining the two and uh that was really the kind of the the signature of what I brought to Magic it really was telling stories with magic was your family pretty supportive of you at at 16 or were they're like hey we want you to go to college like what are you doing 16 no 12 yes 16 you know you should be a doctor or a lawyer you know do that kind of thing and and that my mother's really tough on me you know in my show I tell a story about my grandfather being really tough on me and uh but it's really about my mom who was alive when I wrote that piece on the show uh and that negative reinforcement actually worked for me it was something that really uh spirited me forward made me fight to prove that I I was that I was right for me not not that she was wrong but I I was right so I really struggled to to to figure how to make this very um off you know off trck job a a a career that I could actually feed a family with so um but it was really looking at the big picture of what other entertainment forms did and uh model myself not after you know other magicians I model myself after film directors and um you know in fact Tony Shay was today was talking about how you know great Innovation comes from people who are who are looking outside their own their own world of expertise to put into their own line of work and that's exactly that's my my secret if that's the biggest secret is to really uh look at you know people like yourself and people you know like Elon Musk who've you know just didn't take no for an answer and just found ways of of interpreting what they were good at and combining with uh what they learned from other sources at at what point did you realize this is going to be a career for me like this is something that I can actually make a living at and and have a family I'm still trying to figure that out yeah no you know and that's I I make a joke out it but but it's actually true I I think the people that I really admire the people who have lasted stay hungry they just stay hungry and um uh they're never really satisfied I'm not sure that's the healthiest thing in the world but you know I'm I'm always looking to try to expand my uh kind of my reach on what I can give to people as as an artist or as a communicator as a you know and so I think I know a lot of people who have very short careers in Show Business and it's because they lose that that passion you know and um I thank God I still have it you know it's for me you know I talk about these three words that are my U uh my thing and it's passion uh preparation and persistence and whether you're a magician or Illusionist or a TV producer you know or a technological wizard guy you know it's a matter of of having those same things you're really passionate about something you really love have a belief in something and a willing to prepare you know preparation and for persistence because God knows you know the world throws all this negative stuff at you all the time and they tell you you can't and you know and and you'll make mistakes and you have to really you know brush yourself off and keep going what was the um point when you had your first paid gig as a magician I think I was uh 10 five five bucks balloon animals they all look like poodles deino the boy magician yes but even that you know even in that show it was I do a routine all with light bulbs you know there was a magician who did a light bulb act but I would do a routine it was all time to music and the lighting counted everything you know it's it's it's like an Apple box you know the app everything counts in the in a piece of Apple packaging you know you open it up and the feel of the paper is important the you know the colors the you the texture and how it's folded the T type the the fonts that are used everything is important and from when I was a kid I because I looked at these movies which had beautiful art Direction and beautiful lighting and beautiful color com I wanted my magic to be that so I was kind of U you know doing that with my magic even at a very young age and uh probably screwing up a lot but at least trying yeah yeah um you were the youngest person uh elected to the Society of American Magicians uh what is that exactly for the people that that don't follow to be elected or no of of the society the Houdini Houdini started an organization called the Sam Society of American Magicians uh with another group of people he was the the second president or something like that for seven years and nine years and uh it's you know a lot of great magicians belong to it it's more of a communal group of um of uh you know hobbyists and professionals but Houdini was a large part of that and they they've since given me lot of very flattering Awards but you know I'm just again I think just getting it right just keep you know getting it right is is what I try to do and i' you know I've done certain things which are pretty good and um you know the next things that I'm working now I'm just you know I'm like you I'm on the iPhone just thinking of ideas and here's a good music choice for this here's a good way of changing the script and here's how you can affect people in a different way with with this art form that's usually meant to go you know the when I started Magic it was all about making people go like that which is pretty good you know it's not a bad thing to have people you know go go wow you how'd you do that but that was never enough for me you know that's like somebody just singing well you know that's not enough you have to have them really care about you or what you're saying the words you're saying the stories you're telling uh what they know about you as a person uh the movie of your life is as important as just being able to sing well unfortunately in Magic if you are able to fool people they'll think you're a great magician so there's a lot of magicians who can fool people but are kind of don't have all those other qualities but people still go wow that was great you know right and um you know the requirement U you know if if somebody has an app and it's an okay app the world will go no that's not so good you know the world go on but in Magic if something fools you unfortunately uh that is a level of of excellence in many people's eyes because they don't know the difference um but um that's a kind of frustration for people like me or pen and tell people that are you know really you know working hard to to make a difference and to to to have a point of view That's Unique yeah what do you think about speaking of just you know a performance versus just someone that's doing standard street magic or something like that especially with the internet what do you think about the fact that you know you can go on YouTube now and pretty much search for any type of trick and there'll be some type of explanation or reveal there does that does that bother you is that something that you know when you have these meetings at the society you talk about yeah I happen been to a to a few I like to think of the society is a secret like you have to wear black clothes and things like that no no it doesn't work like that but but but it's interesting that um you know it's a really excellent question because the world has obviously changed for everything you know not just for magic we have accessibility which is good and bad to everything and good information and bad information you know for me um there's two two things I can say about it you know what I do ever since there was a guy on TV called the mass Magician on TV before the internet uh where this guy come at who's exposing magic I remember that guy you guys tried to hunt him down at some point I didn't I wasn't I wasn't a hunter but uh but what it did was it was he showing all the the reveals for all the tricks right but see you that's the problem you thought it was real and most of them wouldn't work most of them were kind of fake explanations that really wouldn't work you know but people believed them which was sort of as bad it's like the people go oh yeah okay they were kind of disinterested because they saw what they thought was real it really would never work if you really think through it so you want to shake no it's not we worked hard on this it's not that simple thing um but uh so what I did in reaction to that and again this is before the inter whole internet you know U experience happened um what I would do is I I would have three or four methods for each of my Illusions when I would fly in my show and I'd fly you know through hoops and i' you fly in a plexiglass box and I flew a girl in my arm arms and you know I would do um another El I produce vanish people from the audience I'd have four methods or at least three methods for each illusion before I ever debuted I'd spend like three years coming up with an illusion so if somebody on the internet exposed something or tried to expose it or was close I'd keep the illusion I get to keep it and I change the method I was in um in turkey and a guy did this illusion where I vanished a bunch of people in and never did anybody reveal the secret ever in like years of doing it and this guy was a singer I didn't know a a Turkish singer and he went TV and for publicity of himself he went out and he exposed kind of close to what he experienced didn't know the whole thing cuz they don't really know everything and um the next day I was able to change the method I did it a whole different way and the audience read this thing in the paper because in the in Turkish pres it was a huge thing that this guy was exposing my stuff because I was there for like this one week and I said you know I know this guy Expos the thing and and they started booing the guy they start boo maybe to support me I'm not sure if they were just being patronized me and then I said but we're not going to show you this is not the way and I did the illusion and they like got up there was like Rocky bbo you know beat this guy and you know what that says is that people really are curious I mean your audience and you know people in this world and your world are really like they they you know they sit and watch the you know they're like looking like that and some of them are like relaxing and enjoying it but a lot of them are time to do that but in their hearts people want to dream we people need to dream people need to be amazed they really do it's a human thing that we have we did a Broadway show and Francis Ford Copa you know Apocalypse Now and Godfather he was my collaborator on the show he is really an amazing smart guy technically smart guy he knows about lighting and all that because of all the movies he's the first person to show me text messaging backstage at Cesar's pal he says David look at this this is called text messaging and he hands me the phone and I and he goes he says watch hello David like this and he had another phone he show like this I said that took so much time that's never nobody's going to like this it's never going to work this is ridiculous watch this I said hello how you doing that took one second this is ridiculous I was wrong but he's he was he was ahead of the the curve because he showed me this thing for the first time as an example he would sit in my in the audience while we were doing rear 6 months of rehearsals and he'd watch the show and all his technical crew would go backstage cuz they had to watching how he did the magic and they go go they go into the audence to see Francis and the audence they go Francis you got to go backstage this is technically this is cooler than the show what's going on Backstage is really great you got to see this and he said no I don't want to go I'm I don't want to see it and this is for months they said no when flies and the thing it's we get a thing no it was necessary for him to keep the illusion to keep the fantasy of it like Einstein said you have to hold on to your Illusions you know if you lose them you're you're dead I said that very badly but that there's a quote of his like that you know we need the dream so I think there's something that in in us no matter how technically Savvy you are and how much technology and and and and smart stuff is going on to decipher things there's a part of us that needs to be transported and needs to believe this more to you know more to life than what we know about and I think that's probably the reason that you know the the Elon musks and so forth if you go when your interview with him he talked about you know his inspiration was comic books as a kid not other scientists but comic books we need to think about the possibilities of that and that's part of my job my part part of my job is to make people dream you know because you know when Da Vinci's um you know helicopter didn't work it's kind of a dream and then finally it worked you know Jules Vern's submarine 20,000 Leagues you know down there didn't work but eventually it worked yeah so I think you know they are all magicians and da Vinci actually was a magician in fact I was going to say you must be a big fan of D Vines right I mean I who who is not a do do you collect some of his stuff like because I know you have a lot of Houdini stuff and I don't know if it's available you know I mean there's obviously there's the codec all that stuff that exists but no I don't you know uh but um you no want to sell something yeah uh no I I you know his contributions obviously throughout all you know the real renaissance man of all time is obviously Da Vinci but you know Da Vinci wrote a magic book I found out last year DaVinci wrote a magic book that made me feel really really good you know what I'm saying he was interested in in what I what I love and it's because you know creating wonder you know he did it for real in many cases he did it in dreams he did also so in creating puzzles and and things that that could make people dream and I think that's his great now he was um you know a very secretive man like wrote his notes backwards and things like isn't that great that's amazing but I I'd like to talk to you about that as well because I know that magic obviously is a very kind of secretive art how do you develop something new who do you figure out who to trust like well you know eventually now we're in a new world of course you know um throughout history magic invention has become commonplace um the cinema as we know it was a magic effect in a show you know at the theater Rober houdan you know if you saw the Copa Dracula movie there's a scene where Dracula walks into a magic theater and a train in the movie comes comes at you and you know the movies was a trick and then eventually storytellers took that and said you know I'm going to make that into I'm tell stories with that you know use that and and George meles who was a magician if you saw the movie Hugo uh was a performing magician who saw the value of of film you know the the camera stopped for a second when as was shooting and the guy disappeared he said wow that that's a pretty good trick you know the camera stops and and it jumps in the thing so that was the first special effects and so uh the magician who was georgees eventually ended up being one of the great film founders of fantasy films and dreaming and you know he he um you know did the trip to the moon which we can talk about you know a little bit later but I I think you know uh those that piece of technology which is the cinema was a secret effect was a secret and then finally was not a secret um you know there was a a mind reader named Alexander the man who knows you've seen his posters the guy with the turban reading Minds like this that classic thing well there's a reason he had a turban on because he had all his electronics in his thing and and nobody knew about Electronics you know nobody knew about like people listening hearing you know hearing devices in the back listen listening to the ladies go my husband you know wants to buy that model teeth and thing you know and and he on stage husband wants a model te you know but nobody knew that a radio was a radio it wasn't so common that technology could be used there's a thing I have in my little Museum a Buddha and the Buddha has his lips open and you The Spectator come from the audience and put your ear up to the lips and hello that was a big deal you know I like amazing this talking Buddha it's just a speaker and a thing so you know who knows what I have now that I'm doing that's going to be you can be used somebody that's a lot smarter than me is going to use that and go you know make it a a thing you know when I was a when I was a kid Dick Tracy there was a cartoon on TV side Amer J Dick Tracy and Dick Tracy had a wrist radio and there was a TV and you could talk to the you know the commander and there radio I think Apple will have that out in about a year from now but they do I mean FaceTime is what it is you know what I'm saying but I bought as a you know you know 40 years ago I wanted a rist radio and they it had a little walkie-talkie and the big wasn't it was on the TV thing was like a little wrist thing but the when he sold for kids was a big thing on your back a big walkie-talkie on your back with cords down your thing and you thought you're really cool well now we're talking to my daughter on the phone with FaceTime it's like my God I mean you know what's going to happen in our in our lifetimes amazing how do you start off um if if you want to come up with a new illusion say you're in you're in your inventing mode yeah is it I am now I am now are you now so is it is it do you start with okay take for example like say no one has ever flown before and you say I want to fly for the first time do you start with that seed of the idea or how do you or is it the technology first where you're like I know we can do this with the tech that's a great question I think you know it's like if you if I was a songwriter and you were to ask me which comes first the words or the music they would say it depends unless it's Elton John who only does it one you know the the music comes first and then he writes the song afterwards um but it all depends uh sometimes there'll be a great piece of technology I've always wanted to fly always wanted to do a flying something and then I was working on an illusion with a uh to escape from a a volcano an escape from a volcano I was going to fly out of this volcano and we're working with lava all kinds of different things that we could fake lava with and make real lava you know studying all that stuff but then as I was doing this working on how I would you know get out of this volcano and a piece of technology came into play and I said screw the the The Volcano this is flying this is going to be flying is that you researching that and fing out or do you have a team that works with you both both both yeah I've got great really talented people that's like asking a film director who's in charge I mean of course I'm in charge of it but I've got people who were very very smart in their own Fields you know there U Chris Kenner Homer leeag people on my team uh that are who worked with me for 20 years that you know we research see what the new technologies are you know you know at the back of the house a gentleman came up to talks about a new thing that's halfway done that we won't talk about now because I'm going to right now because of that conversation we had in the back I'm going to I'm going to check it out to see at least I'll have maybe a 5e span where I can use it before before you guys take it and you know make make phones out of it you know so just try to get a shot at you know the microwave oven you know how does a mic you know uh it's finding a a window of time where I I can I can use it and amaze people before before before you know you folks amaze people you have a large collection of Houdini's objects um is there anything that you have that you've collected that you're still Amazed by that you just haven't explained like no one knows about yet like it's still a secret we have just about all of Houdini stuff I mean all of his water torture cell and his notebooks and his handcuffs and is that all public or no like as far as I take exhibition I I take exhibitions out of there I mean you were there so you saw it's all kind of very secret stuff so you can't really do that but I take exhibitions out from that museum but um you know before Houdini the I mean the real guy even though Houdini is the big famous guy and he did amazing job he got his name from Rober houdan and Rober houdan was the real inventor invented the mystery clock which is amazing piece of technology he was an automaton inventor because the internet back then was automatons and he used the technology of that time to amaze people um cell phones and internet back then was ether you know you have have ether put somebody out with ether that was the cool thing or these they would do that they would just knock someone out with well in in hospital terms but but but and he have you done that all the time all the time to myself no but what he would do is he would levitate his son and because that the craze was this new found ether thing he would waft ether through the audience not enough to put them out but they would smell the smell and they would think that was the method of of the the of the boy floating so he who collected all this houd Dan stuff this big film producer named Christian fesner took me to his house and reached behind a thing and he pulled out the gimmick of the the technology that was built for the sun to to fit the Sun and he put it in my hands and I had in my hands and I began to cry holding this thing and it's because for 30 years of doing this i' watched this this picture this drawing this this thing and I'm holding the real object in my hand so I was like oh my God and uh I I wanted this for my museum so bad and uh and of course it belongs in France as part of French culture and you all this kind of stuff and last year I smuggled it out of France wow amazing sorry sorry FR I'm taking good care of it though I cry no more tell me if this is a true story I heard one time someone tried to mug you yeah and they were unsuccessful well no they were successful they were successful they took your wallet no they took everyone else's uh money but uh I in an act of amazing stupidity I I used magic to not give him my wallet and uh and my passport and so forth you know there's a there's a way there's a technique and I did it which is really ridiculous with a gun in your face so there was that's a true story I thought that was like an internet thing so there was a gun pointed at you they said pull out your wallet and you made it vanish and no that that wasn't that stupid that was really no no no no it was it was a you know some my associates with me and you know a car pull car pulls up a bunch of kids come out of the car and I get my pen out to sign autographs they didn't they didn't know who the hell I was at all the guns coming out like that you know my in my face and you know the he no problem no problem the girls gave the gave the money to to I showed my pockets empty they weren't empty but luckily they they you know they left that point but it's really really stupid guns in your face just give them the money that's amazing really stupid what's in your pocket bam that didn't happen um so I want to talk briefly about uh what you're doing today and where you see yourself in five years I know that you are on a crazy schedule you have two shows tonight yeah and how many shows have you been doing like I've heard it's uninterrupted for how long now we're doing 11 week 11 we run I never take a day off during when we're doing runs so I I do 15 shows a week for 11 weeks straight uh with no days off but I get to do this and hang out with you guys right which is which is awesome um and so my days are free you know but that you know that's a different thing I don't know in in the world of uh technology and business what is an example of me doing a show what would you say for when I go I I get to walk out and people are smiling at me and they're like happy and they're applauding and they they like look at me like they really there's a couple people that don't really love me but but but you mostly they're there they paid you know the hundred bucks or whatever they said they're kind of happy you know so it's kind of a good thing the the you know the day before of of doing the business of the lawyers of the contracts that's no good but the show itself is what's that in your world I think it it has to be when you're doing a startup and you get so much excitement that it doesn't feel like you're working you just you're doing what you love and so you lose track of time it's 2: in the morning it's kind of the same idea yeah and then the and when it works that's probably the thing get the adrenaline you get in the rush yeah so so the shows don't you know you shouldn't you know Pat me on the back for doing that many shows oh that's good that's but we take like sick days and yeah I take 10 weeks off a year 10 or 12 weeks off a year and I I go you know I've got to um nice place to go so it's um you know it's it's good but right now you know I'm inventing new stuff all the time and that's good that's like the startup that's the example of startup sure tons of problems and struggles puzzles have to be solved but when you make that turn and finally something that doesn't work for while finally works it's really rewarding you know and you you know I'm doing a thing in my show now where I'm levitating a guy in the audience surrounded by them like right in the middle of the audience you know not in the aisle just right in the middle of the audience and for two years you know the levitation part of it was an invention of a friend of mine the levitation part but another thing happens in the middle of the audience where you couldn't do it in the middle of the audience so we took two years with this one guy's invention and added our invention to it the fact of doing it in the audience and that kind of condition and it didn't work for 2 years and just it wouldn't be right and after every show I would keep the audience I'd keep 100 people from the audience and they'd stay there and i' try this out and I'd interview them and they'd say that sucked and we saw that and you know and then we do it again again and again just try to kind of carve off all the problem areas and these are real audience members that you had and you swear them to secrecy please don't Google don't don't don't you know put this on your Facebook please don't talk about that and they did it they kind of I had no haters you know luckily in those groups so uh that is the PC term haters I think that's right um and um I didn't have have either no either so they actually were pretty good and um but for two years and finally it worked and it's amazing now I get up there and I'm just I can't wait to do it you know I do it and I watch and my staff who works as hard if not harder than me sits there around me and the thing and they see the audence who like erupt in like amazement and they sit there and they go they were part of something that they work they say it finally happen so that's very rewarding just to watch my own people's faces be rewarded by failure failure failure failure success and it finally works and um it's good you know and so that process is very good we're creating a new show now that's really based in inspiring people trying to take people using magic as a metaphor uh to live the impossible to find whatever your own impossible is in your own life especially if you're not a magician find that thing you were told no about that you couldn't do you know the fact that you know Everest was an impossible thing until 60 years ago today that you know and then one guy does it and then okay people are doing it's not in the news it's it's a common thing you know uh running the you know the Roger Bannister mile the four minute mile it was impossible so my magic is really kind of a metaphor of that you know I'm not I'm trying not to do tricks because there are really hard work behind it I'm trying to do things that will inspire people hopefully to to take their own lives and and find possibilities and uh get a little bit of strength that you know they can do it too whatever their Endeavor is and this isn't something where you invent something and you roll it to into your existing show or is it you're going to unveil a whole new show in a few years no I I my technique I don't have I'm not that um ballsy no I I I slowly put things uh into the show and I I do the Beatles you know I used to love how the Beatles would have an album and there was you know things that they knew people would love and then they'd stick in the album something there would be a test and that would if that had legs it would expand it out so I kind I kind of try to to to uh I know where I'm going with the stuff and the stuff that's risky or new technologically new or interesting or or story interesting um uh or revolutionary in my own way I'll sneak that in the show and there's a piece I'm doing in the show and people are liking it right now with the little alien and I I literally have a stuffed animal on stage to represent the alien people don't mind it's my my my family goes why you how can you you're having this stupid stuffed animal as part of this trick it's do wait for the real thing but no I'm trying it out slowly to kind of see uh I guess in technological terms it would be kind of Market testing what would you call when you a beta test like a beta test but I'm I'm you know I charge money for my beta test it has to be good enough you know that's awesome well thanks for coming on the show can I get a round of applause appreciate thank you very [Music] much

Channel: Kevin Rose

Views: 49,127

Keywords: david copperfield, foundation, interview, podcast, talk, chat, inspiration, magic, Entrepreneur (Profession), Entrepreneurship (Field Of Study), Talk Show (TV Genre), Tricks

Id: 6GEDsRMBd98

Length: 34min 55sec (2095 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 29 2013