David Blaine Version: David Blaine used various camera shots in his TV special with the audience reaction being filmed close up and linked to other clips of him in mid air with some of the angles showing the Balducci levitation. 

The view that shows him rise a good few inches in the air and does not show the audience, would possibly have been done with a bar attached to a pivot like a seesaw. 

The end of the pivot could have had a hook which clipped onto a harness attached to his belt and a member of the crew would have pushed down on the other side of the bar lifting David up in the air. The camera angle would have hidden the props. 

This film would have been mixed in with the audience clips in the studios later.