Effect
During the trick, Copperfield flies acrobatically about the stage, even doing a backflip in midair, and then has spinning hoops passed around him to "prove" that he is not suspended from wires. He then floats down into an acrylic glass box, previously examined by audience members, and continues to float inside after the box is covered; an assistant walks over the top, and Copperfield walks upside down moving his feet under the assistant's feet. He then selects a female volunteer from his audience and flies with her in a fashion similar to Superman carrying Lois Lane. The illusion sometimes ends with a falcon named "Icarus" grasping Copperfield by the wrist and flying off stage with him.
A blue backcloth is used in the background, and the television version even uses fake clouds hanging from the ceiling, since the stage used that time was much bigger and larger. The performance is accompanied by an orchestration called "East of Eden Suite" by film composer Lee Holdridge, originally written as the theme music for a 1981 miniseries based on the novel East of Eden.
Before the illusion, Copperfield declared that it took him seven years to develop it, and showed a video describing how long men wanted to fly, and how many people before him unsuccessfully tried.
Copperfield also performed a much-shortened version of the illusion as the entrance in his sixteenth TV special The Magic of David Copperfield XV: Fires Of Passion (1993). A different background and music were used.
Read more about this topic: David Copperfield's Flying Illusion
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