Stop and Start “Magic”
How did Bewitched capture the magic that Samantha Stephens conjured up before the advent of CGI? The answer is pretty rudimentary. In the instances when Samantha would wiggle her nose to tidy up a room or make something disappear, Elizabeth Montgomery would simply freeze in place as workers on set scrambled to move or rearrange objects while the camera paused filming.
Nowadays, with more sophisticated means of “movie magic,” this may seem simple and low-tech. But it definitely got the job done, and is usually barely noticeable on the show. It was probably pretty frantic while moving props around on set. It’s hard work to remain perfectly frozen in place!