Philip Nelson

Criss Angel Wrapup

I hope my blog readers had a chance to watch the web coverage of Criss Angel’s Building Implosion Escape. What a great event. As you may already know, I spend most of my time working with sports leagues, teams, networks, etc.. This was my first opportunity work with someone from the magic business. Have seen a few episodes of Mindfreak, I didn’t really know what to expect coming into the project.

Philip Nelson in front of the soon to be imploded Spy Glass Hotel

From start to finish I was extremely impressed with Criss Angel. He is a true showman and is great to his fans. He showed up early in the day and worked the crowd and spent time signing autographs and taking photos with fans both before and after his show. The crowd of 15,000 that showed up at Clearwater Beach, FL didn’t leave disappointed.

Criss Angel greets his fans before the big show

Observers were given goggles and masks to protect them from the dust and debris.

I’ve been getting questions about the TriCaster setup for the show so I’ll give you guys an inside look into the project.A&E used the TriCaster Broadcast for the project fed by 4 cameras(2 Building Shots and 2 handheld shots) and two audio sources (Natural Sound and Mic from host Joe Monti). The output from the TriCaster was fed to a delay box to allow A&E to have a 5 second buffer incase someone got crazy and started flashing the camera.. The Joys of LIVE! The TriCaster Broadcast was outfitted with both an LC-11 and a TimeWarp (Had to show an instant reply of the building implosion). The output from the delay box was sent to TWO satellite uplink trucks which fed our show back to HQ for encoding and distribution.

The Stream Team - Webcast Producer - Andrew Lipson, Webcast Host/Criss Angel Magic Consultant - Joe Monti & Chief Slacker - Philip Nelson

Webcast host, Joe Monti was AMAZING to work with. He is a guru of magic and one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Probably one of the best webcast host that I’ve ever had the honor of working with. This guy can really think on his feet. One classic moment from the webcast was when Criss’ brother JD showed the camera the first brick taken from the collapsed building and Joe grabbed it from him and ran off. Classic!Joe Monti just can’t believe that this little box can be running the entire webcast.

One thing that impressed me about working on this project is Criss Angel and his family. The all seemed like very cool people and the entired team seemed to be very close.

Criss Angel signs autographs for fans after the show

Philip Nelson & Criss Angel. Funny fact one of Criss' brothers is peeking through between us and the other is taking the picture! Rock on!