done with mirrors

(all) done with mirrors

Done using trickery, deception, or misdirection. Before computer generated effects, fantastic, unbelievable things in movies were all done with mirrors.
See also: done, mirror
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

done with mirrors

verb
See done by mirrors
See also: done, mirror
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • (all) done by mirrors
  • (all) done with mirrors
  • all done with mirrors
  • mirror
  • done by mirrors
  • done
  • no time like the present
  • no time like the present, there's
  • there's no time like the present
  • good and quickly seldom meet
References in periodicals archive
Done with mirrors: Clever placement can make a room appear larger or ceilings higher
I have watched him for years entertaining people for free, The joy on their faces is fanstastic to see, It's not done with mirrors and nothing is up his sleeve, In your own eyes you will not believe.
Again, this is done with mirrors. Specifically, a digital micromirror device (DMD) that is at center to the AR-HUD PGU, or "picture-generating unit." DMD is technology from Texas Instruments (ti.com) that is similar to that TI developed for DLP Cinema, its digital approach to showing movies; a DMD for a commercial film has up to 8.8-million microscopic mirrors.
All done with mirrors WEDGE-TYPE rooms like this can feel dark in the corners (especially away from windows) and can be difficult to dress as a central frame can look off-centre thanks to the wedge shape.
It was a case of being Nothing Like a Dame; I could not resist trying 'a Churchill', outside the Number Ten set, at Granada Studios, in 1993; It was all done with mirrors when I visited an art exhibition at Bodelwyddan, North Wales, and ended up as a decapitated head, above, and my feature extolling the joys of stormy weather found me doing a Singing in the Rain routine, right, outside our office in Old Hall Street
It's all done with mirrors - Not only are we using the old 'mirror above the fireplace' trick to bounce light and increase the feeling of space, we're also going one better by adding mirrored tops to furniture - and alcove - to create an Art Dco feel.
But only fiance Vernon Kay can testify whether or not it was all done with mirrors.
It was, in the finest magic circle tradition, all done with mirrors, writes Roy Briggs.
It's not done with mirrors, says booker Tim Neece, but with a gigantic truss and tons of stainless steel-mesh curtains.
This trick isn't done with mirrors, the usual way to send light on a new path, but with a photonic crystal, a structure that excludes light in a chosen range of wavelengths.
"It's all being done with mirrors, for a purpose quite other than the one to which the networks pretend."
The program's paying its own way didn't happen overnight, and it isn't done with mirrors.
As it turns out, the whole thing is done with mirrors.
It will take some doing, this late in the game, but one thing is certain: It can't be done with mirrors and symbols, visuals and bites.
Yup, it's all done with mirrors! We tiled a wall section with rectangular mirrors that also serve to play with the proportions of the room by elongating the feeling – – long, lean landscape artworks could do the same.