Wowsa, my heart is pumping faster already! Hope I don't sound too self absorbed, but I am pretty excited about this.

I just got an email tonight from our video editor- FCM member Randy Craven- he just completed a brand new ONE HOUR video production of Now That's Magic! We shot the very raw footage in one fast take back in July- Randy has very skillfully/somehow from that pile of old tapes (we literally had "used tape"- we can't afford the new stuff- and were taping over an old video of a local girls softball game)... and from it pieced together this brand new Gospel magic and chalk art show for cable access. It always AMAZES me what Randy comes up with- he times everything out and adds music and graphics- so don't blame him for any shortcomings in the programs.

He said the "special" features Duane Laflin, MagicBob, SuZie and yours truly. I obviously have not seen it and have no idea how it turned out- but it should be a hoot. And the reason I use the word "hoot" and howdy- MagicBob and SuZie did a whole new routine based on a western theme. It was fun to film- I was operating the camera for them- and I could'nt believe what MagicBob did to put this unique routine together for us for this little local aired program of ours. Get your six shooters, train whistle, and hang man's noose ready!

My guess is the whole new program should be posted to http://www.ChristianMagician.org by 2-1-10 latest, but more likely in the next couple of days. Hope you enjoy it. If I look ridiculous- blame the cameraman. Whoops, can't blame the cameraman- we did not have one! We had to use "set cameras" when I did anything as I was the only authorized cameraman available that particular stormy Saturday morning, so that was a bummer. So if my head is chopped off in my program segment, don't blame Randy or Matt, nothing they could do about it. So it makes what Randy comes up with even more remarkable. Psalm 67! fellow magishes! Roger Magic Bus from Kazoo land.

The Now That's Magic! one hour SPECIAL should/may be posted to http://www.ChristianMagician.org web site within 48 hours. The contents of the program is as follows:
Duane Laflin: Vanishing multi-colored silk, wand to silk. Based on Psalm 136:4. "I do tricks, God does miracles."
Roger Magic Bus: Abbott's Florabella and Abbott's Goofus Plant.
MagicBob: The Karl Germain water jars. John 7:38. Jesus, the cool living water.
SuZie: Old west chalk art, get on the right track. http://www.NeedGod.com With MagicBob doing the Tom Horn chain restraint escape.
Roger Magic Bus: The ABC Blocks using Duane Laflin's "heaven box" routine. Psalm 67. Also using Laflin's "Holy Bible" small production box.
MagicBob: Lit light bulb to salt. Matthew 5:13-14. "This Little Light of Mine."
Roger Magic Bus: Knotted rope, giant scissors. Mikame cup/ball monte routine.
Duane Laflin: Rainbow rope. John 3:16. God really does love all the children of the world.
MagicBob: Close-Up Lincoln penny to pressed Ten Commandments penny. Pennies available at http://www.LivingWaters.com
Roger Magic Bus: "Know Your Fruit" Strat-O-Spheres using fruit. Fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-23
Closing chalk art work by SuZie: I Thess. 2:12. Walking worthy of our calling. Final song is Rich Mullin's "Awesome God" (used by permission)

This program was produced for our local cable access system, each program is usually is aired by them (Comcast Channel 12 in Paw Paw, Michigan) at least 20 times per program at all different times of the day and evening. So it makes it well worth the effort of putting it together, all completed by volunteers. I encourage you to try putting a show or two together for your cable area, lots of fun to do.

The ONE HOUR show #9 is now posted to http://www.ChristianMagician.org Hooray!

If you go to the site and #9 is not there, go to http://www.ChristianMagician.org through Internet Explorer or "refresh" your search and the updated site with the brand new program on it will be posted. It (#9) is there now.

MagicBus, very well done. Thanks for sharing it. I always look forward to your videos.

Thanks, much appreciated, your encouragement means a lot to me. I watched the show yesterday for the first time. MagicBob's doing of the Germaine Water Jars in front of a row of kids is a pretty neato effect. When filming it, I thought, oh this is so easy, two of the jars have no bottoms and all just stack inside each other. But at the end of the effect, Magic Bob pours water out of each jar independently, eh???, how can that be? Just cool water! I also thought SuZie's chalk art the finish the program was very unique- the picture seemed very surreal or abstract until the very end- she drew the Creator holding the heart shaped universe in His hands. Wow. That was terrific, the "homerun" of the show I think.

Thanks to Phil B. from Connecticut for calling my office today 2-1-10 with very kind words on Now That's Magic!- much appreciated- and I forwarded on your encouragements as well to Randy and MagicBob. And yes- we hope to make more- and yes- we want YOUR video DVDs to be used in future episodes as well. Just make sure any background music you submit is either royalty free or properly credited and used by permission. Send to: Roger Bus, 903 E. Cork Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49001. We've still got quite a few unfilmed Gospel magic routines left to go, it is just a matter of getting all the stuff compiled, this is great fun for us and to be involved with so many people from all over the place. The drawing SuZie did at the end of #9 she recently drew at a GR magician's marriage vow renewal ceremony (25 years I think), that was cool too and can work for upcoming Valentine's Day. If only I could draw...

Is Phil. B a member here?

I think he is- he said he saw us on The Magic Café'- nice! He said he and his wife were at a FCM Convention before. I believe Phil does balloons- I encouraged him to get in a tape- we have never had a balloon guy on before- would love to have it.

Howdy -
Yes, I am a member here and try and post when I can.

I have been a member of FCM for more than 10 years now and have been blessed by the friendships and encouragement received there. I have truly come to cherish the "Fellowship" portion of the "FCM".

My work is mostly in doing "balloon shows", although I will use a magic prop from time to time, but again with the prop it has to be "balloon oriented" or at least "balloon-friendly" ie: using balloon costumes to act out the patter or story line.

My "passion" is ministering to children and evangelizing and/or edifying with gospel related balloon sculptures. Using sculptures to illustrate the truths of Scripture is how I'm wired. I do programs in local churches, christian schools, christian organizations and campwork. (Although we live in Connecticut, campwork takes us to Quebec one week in the summer). As I mentioned to Roger when I called, my wife does chalk art and puppeteering. She is a tremendous artist!

We attended the FCM Int'l. convention a couple of years ago and I had the priviledge of giving several lectures in the balloon department. We would love to get back there again as it was one of the best weeks of our lives. Our whole family was thoroughly blessed by that experience and I would HIGHLY reccomend it to everyone. Time and time again we heard the sentiment of John 3:30 (yes, I will wait while you go look it up....... echoed over and over and over again. Especially from those who are well respected in the gospel and secular fields.

Well, I have rambled on a bit much and diverted the thread here a little. Thank you for your patience. Roger, I will try and get a balloon segment produced for your use in a program. Again, I really appreciate all you guys do in getting gospel magic out into the world.

Anyone can feel free to drop me a line or give me call, I'd love to chat. You can find me in the FCM "book". More importantly my name is written in God's Book, how about you?



peace,
phill

In my town (Kalamazoo, Michigan), our local cable access system (Kalamazoo Community Access Center) has installed a new "robo-studio." All I have to do to use it is take a three hour class on 2-18 to use it. This filming studio is a very small room but features professional lighting fixtures, professional grade cameras, and backdrops. These cameras are operated by a little remote control device- or the performer can preset the cameras and watch him/herself on a monitor while performing.

The neat thing about this entire setup is that it is designed to use zero non-performing manpower, zero helpers, zero switchboard/sound operators and zero camera operators: the performer can literally film himself with no outside help. This is all to encourage more programs being locally produced.

From my standpoint- it means I can shoot Gospel magic footage now in a good, well lit location without having to get a team of students together to help me. Soooooo, this may result in more footage being available for future Now That's Magic! programs and for youtube. Yes!

I consider "Now That's Magic!" to be available to any FCM members- send me your footage on DVD please- we'd love to perhaps use it! I cannot guarantee it will be used, but I can guarantee Randy our film editor will get it and he can decide if it can be used for NTM!future programs. I really want to keep these web programs going if I can.

I encourage you to make a call to your nearest cable access system where you live-you might find that you too can use a "robo-studio" there if they have one (or a simple studio set up)available just for you. I can't wait to try this out- any footage I have done in the past was often in "one take" because three or four other teens or college kids were there assisting me (and I really did not want to do the same thing over and over in front of them). With this new "robo-studio", I can do the same trick over and over until I like it and have it exactly the way I want it to be... The camera movements probably will not be as good, but that's ok for this tradeoff.

FCMers- you may want to check out if your local system has a "Robo-Studio" and get your performing footage to me! The show must go on! (did someone actually say that?). Have a great day all, thanks for reading and your encouragement regarding some of the goofy stuff we FCMers try here in SW Michigan, hope to see you all in Marion this summer. NTM!is not always CBS quality, but at least we are getting a lot of local air time. When they air Now That's Magic! where I live- it always is shown in the 9PM prime time spot on Comcast Channel 12. Can't ask for anything more than that, still is a surprise to see Comcast doing that for us. We will literally be airing this Sunday night when the Super Bowl is on--- yikes, that might hurt just a little bit...

That's sounds like awsome news MagicBus. The Lord is obviously opening doors for you guys to continue to produce, "Now That's Magic" episodes.

I may have to consider sending in a video to you for you guys to decide if it should be on a future episode. I can only imagine how many video footages you guys already have. Perhaps something with Buddy and myself considering there hasn't be a puppet routine yet.

Either way, I enjoy watching the episodes, so keep at them.

Yes- we need more footage for sure! We have not had any puppets, or balloonists, or vents, pretty much just magicians and chalk art so far. Only a few juggling segments early on.

I have gotten only just a few DVDs to date (like from Terry), and some of those did have very excellent footage (like from Terry). The problem was Randy decided not to use them all apparently because the production footage were for other tv programs (often way better than ours)- they had their own network graphics, or a very specific background (like in a magic shop with its own puppet "characters"), program titles with the other show's name on it, etc.. I guess Randy figured it was too much editing or would look too obviously lifted/taken from somebody else's tv program. That's probably why Terry's network produced stuff was not used yet, it was TOO good!

Randy did choose some of the footage graciously submitted by Brad Brown, David Ginn and Duane Laflin which did not appear as lifted out of somebody else's prior tv show. So we have used up everything we have as of this point, the well is dry. I sure would welcome more DVDs to send Randy.

I probably will film some more stuff in the "robo studio" in March or April, MagicBob and SuZie also can film things in their basement as Bob has a lot of his own equipment. But as of right now, we have zero submissions to mail to Randy for a new NTM! program. Matt Bizer, a really nice WMU student who directed all our filming in Kalamazoo (e.g.- he operated the control board while I operated the camera), has since graduated and moved out of the area. Control room operators have to be certified in Kalamazoo, so when he left, we don't have anyone currently to fill his shoes.

Soooo, if we are to do more programs, we really will need more submissions from other FCMers as I don't think just footage of me in a robo-studio or MagicBob from his basement would be the same for sure, worse than Wayne's World. We realize this is not network television, but we are still trying to get away from looking like a cable program shot for youtube on a cell phone camera. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hey MagicBus - sure appreciate these videos. I'm a full-time children's pastor and always on the lookout for good Biblical magic presentations and when I found your site I watched all the videos straight through and took a ton of notes and got a lot of great ideas. Thanks for putting those videos together!

Much appreciated Curt! Our pleasure, we have a blast doing it. We are filming again on May 15, 2010, from 10AM-2PM at the Kalamazoo Community Access Center (Epic Center Building) downtown Kalamazoo, so any Gospel magicians, vents, chalkers, puppeteers and jugglers welcome to join us. If you have a something on DVD you'd like to submit for our series editor Randy Craven to consider, please send it to me: Roger Bus, 903 East Cork Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49001. We are also about half done with a web site index for http://www.ChristianMagician.org that should be posted soon. That will help you find in one of the 13 programs posted already a specific trick or Gospel application that you might be looking for. It is a free site put together by MagicBob and featuring a bunch of FCMers, all volunteers, and we sell no products or information. MagicBob of http://www.MagicBob.org has a bunch of his own videos posted under the "videos" portion of his own web site. He does over 150 shows a year, has a full time job, is President of Ring 211, and Chairman of Michigan Magic Day May 7 and 8 in Grand Rapids. He is the original energizer bunny.

Thanks for the link to MagicBob's site. I just started watching some of the videos. Even more good ideas -- thanks for the tip!

Thanks again Curt. I finished up the complete INDEX for http://www.ChristianMagician.org today, MagicBob will probably post it soon there. Then if you are looking for something in particular, either a trick, topic, or Scripture reference, you will be able to find it.

That index sounds great. Looking forward to it being added to the website. Thanks for all your work on that resource. Although I think the Laflin's should pay you a commission -- I've ordered lots of items from them that I first saw on the ChristianMagician website.