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That's not David Bowie juggling those crystals in Labyrinth
A little bit of movie magic was included in the film.
Some of the best special effects in films don't involve computer generation or massive action-packed explosions. Some of the best special effects come from something as simple as a man standing behind David Bowie, pretending to be his right arm and juggling some crystal balls.
Okay, that's an incredibly specific situation, but it's also an incredible bit of movie magic.
If you're familiar with Labyrinth, you know that Jareth, The Goblin King, is known for twirling and juggling various crystal balls throughout the film. Well, David Bowie was capable of a lot of great things, but juggling was not one of them.
Instead, professional juggler Michael Moschen was enlisted to do Bowie's stunt work. Film director Jim Henson spoke of Moschen's talent during a behind-the-scenes interview.
"I've known Michael Moschen's work for several years and he does this incredible act," said Henson. "What he does is as close to real magic as anything that I really know...We had this design for what Jareth was and we wanted him to have a certain kind of magical powers and something to express these magic powers. So then we thought of the idea of using Michael to do that."
Still, it had to look like Bowie was the one performing these moves, so it took some acrobatics to make it appear as though Moschen's hand actually belonged to Bowie.
"We had to have Michael down behind David and he had to be leaning down so that he wouldn't be in the camera shot," Henson said. "For the occasions that we wanted to use Michael's right arm to be David's arm, we set it up with a stand-in for David so he [Michael] could rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and try to get this move."
Once in front of the cameras, Moschen had to stand in a way so that he was invisible to the viewer, but that also meant that he had no visual in his own hand. "He's now working totally blind," Henson said.
Luckily, Moschen had years of practice, and those on set were patient enough to go through many failed takes to reach perfection.
"I had fun," David Bowie said. "I don't think Michael had much fun. It was agonizing for him."
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