Behind the Curtain with Jessica Sonneborn If you do not know who Jessica Sonneborn is, you have missed some incredible performances. She is one of those performers that once you see them on screen, you want to see more. From her start in 2004, she has continued to impress with her performances of strong women. She brings a realism to her acting that can only be found in those who are truly passionate about their craft. her performances are so well done that you can suspend reality and immerse yourself into the scene. You might have seen her magnificent performance in The Witches of Oz or perhaps as Samantha on Love Squared but it is in the role of Katrina in Red Sleep that she stood out to me as someone worth watching. In 2014 she broke away from the acting to try her hand at directing and she gave us the disturbing Haunting of Alice D. An interesting ghost story in which we see a woman who was brutishly used in a brothel coming back to seek revenge on the descendant of the man who tormented her.

The film has some problems but for a first time director she proves that she has the stuff to make it in the big league and conceptually the film is fraking awesome. She has received many accolades from around the film community including: “Jessica Sonneborn obviously submerged herself into the role and mind of Amy and its evident when you watch her stellar performance in the movie.” ~ Keith Makenas, B Movie Nation “The performance that really shines in this House is Sonneborn’s, who walks the tightrope of playing on the audience’s sympathies, while possibly not being quite being as meek and fragile as she first appears.” ~Bryan Stumpf, The Slaughtered Bird “She has to unleash her inner warrior and Sonneborn does well playing a strong woman – I really wouldn’t suggest anyone piss her off.” ~850 Music & Entertainment Jessica has a degrees in Anthropology and  Education. She proves time and time again that she is intelligent and motivated and gives 100% to whatever she sets her mind to.

In her recent film, Dog Eat Dog, she goes up against Nicolas Cage in a humorous yet stressful scene. I caught up with Jessica when she had a brief moment in her busy schedule. Learn more about Jessica via her website and  social media feeds Twitter and instagram: @jesssonneborn Go watch a few of her movies on Amazon: This post has been seen 795 times.Nerd Rage NewsLike this: Krystal’s Cosplayer Of The Month – February 2017Lots of people talk about “movie magic,” but when films need a little actual abracadabra they call on David Kwong. Kwong is the founder of the Misdirectors Guild, a firm that has offered magical advice on films ranging from Red Lights to The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. You can see his latest tricks in the film Now You See Me, which opens today and follows a group of magicians known as the Four Horsemen who magically rob the rich and give to the poor. Although his advice is usually limited to individual tricks, Kwong got involved with the film very early on and made sure director Louis Leterrier layered magic concepts into the story itself.

The fact that the magicians are always one step ahead of everyone? So is one very special part of the movie’s final heist involving a rabbit box. So how does someone become a magic consultant? For Kwong, it started at Harvard University, where he convinced the history department to let him get his degree in magic studies. “They’re now so proud that I’ve done something interesting with my history degree, when they welcome freshmen into the department or try to convince them, rather, to join, they say, ‘Look, when you study history you don’t have to become a professor, you can be a magician,'” Kwong told Wired. traverse curtain rods targetFrom there he went on to do marketing for HBO, study magic in China, and move to Los Angeles to work in film development – which lead to founding the Misdirectors Guild.rivage black curtains

To find out what was “real” magic in Now You See Me and what was just movie magic, Wired asked Kwong to explain a few of the film’s best tricks. He didn’t give everything away, naturally, but he did share some of his secrets. Oh, and before you ask, yes the cast did learn a least a little magic in order to pull off their roles. (Watch them in action in the clips above.) curtains leekesJesse Eisenberg learned card tricks for his J. Daniel Atlas; swish curtain track fixingsIsla Fisher learned how to hold her breath for her Houdini-like role as Henley Reeves; curtains and more whakataneWoody Harrelson learned a few hypnosis moves; ikea spotty curtains

and Dave Franco mastered card-throwing – something that came in handy with his “sleight-of-hand-to-hand-combat” scene (see below) with Mark Ruffalo’s FBI agent Dylan Rhodes. “Dave Franco was an incredible workhorse, he had the most athletic uses of slight of hand in that fight scene,” Kwong said. “He’s really producing hands of cards and throwing them. eclipse curtains friscoMaybe not the wisest choice.” Here are some of the other tricks they pulled off in Now You See Me. Atlas’ “Pick a Card” Trick Now You See Me opens with a card trick by a magician named Atlas, played by Jesse Eisenberg. (Watch him perform it in the clip above.) While throwing up his subject’s card on the side of a building is bit of a twist, the way he suggested which card she should see is a bit of what Kwong calls “riffle selection,” along with some other techniques he won’t reveal.

“It’s the first time you can be part of the audience. And Jesse, who plays Atlas, looks right at the camera as if he’s speaking to the young woman and he suggests that you pick a playing card,” Kwong said. “If you notice the one that he intends, it appears on the building behind him.” While (presumably) no foursome of Las Vegas magicians have ever transported someone to a bank in Paris to rob it blind, the concept of disappearing from a stage and showing up elsewhere is actually a classic David Copperfield illusion. “The original trick where someone disappears in one place and the movie screen comes down and that person appears in a far-off place on the movie screen, that is based on his original trick that he did many years ago called Portal,” Kwong said. Being Handcuffed in a Water Tank When the audience first meets Isla Fisher’s Henley, she’s doing a trick at a gig in Los Angeles where she’s shackled and put in a tank of water. If she doesn’t escape in under a minute, she’ll be attacked by piranhas.

The trick is based on a Harry Houdini trick… mostly. “It’s based on the water-torture cell, which Houdini made famous: escaping from shackles while submerged,” Kwong said. “But [producer] Alex Kurtzman added in the extra danger of the piranhas and it’s a brilliant notion.” Trick Like an Egyptian Morgan Freeman’s “debunker” Thaddeus Bradley tells a story about Egyptians using sleight-of-hand to steal food for slaves. “This is debatable, but many people say that the first magic trick was in ancient Egyptian times,” Kwong said. “And there are real hieroglyphics that appear to be the cups and the balls routine, which evolved into the shell game, which we still see magicians perform today with cups and balls.” You’ll Never See the Eye In Now You See Me, there’s a mysterious ancient order of magicians known as The Eye. Unfortunately, you’ll never see it in the real world. “[The Eye] is made up but it’s certainly something we all fantasize about.