I am in the process of building Shrink Boy from Andrew Mayne book SOLO-X does anyone have tips or video of the illusion?

I know that the rights to this illusion are actually quite iffy. I believe it is Daniel Sommers who claimed proprietary rights to it as "Compressed." I just thought I'd let you know this. Good luck with your project

Nick Fox

My only advice if you are going to pursue building this. DO NOT make it look like any of the knock off's. They are revolting...for lack of better words. Try to throw your own twist on it. Make it yours. But for the love of your belief DO NOT make it look like that "Compressed" illusion that was sound by Tilford a few months back.

Magicall yours,

Matt Kielbiski
Quick Change Artist.

Before you spend time and money building this illusion, talk to Daniel Summers about it. I built a number of these illusions before discovering the inventors' clash and I immediately took it off my website and won't build it for anybody now. Daniel states that he had been performing his version "Compressed" long before Solo-X featuring "Shrink Boy" was published which in my mind makes the situation quite clear.

I have had extensive correspondence on this issue with lots of people including Andrew Mayne, Daniel Summers, Walter Blaney, Abb Dickson, Tim Ellis as well has hearing the opinions from many many magicians (which range the full spectrum).

Following is an excerpt from an email Daniel Summers sent me regarding the Shrink Boy vs Compressed clash. Daniel gave me permission to share his thoughts as necessary. I hope that it sheds some light on the issue. The email begins with Daniel addressing my criticism of him for not making a public statement about the fact that if anybody built Shrink Boy they'd be hearing from him...

FROM DANIEL SUMMERS (October 21, 2003):

"There is one issue you mentioned to me and I see it repeated in your response to Walter [Blaney] and that is; “Why didn’t Daniel bring this [the supposed infringement of Shrink Boy] up in a public forum?” A very good question. Even though it is the visual effect that is being infringed upon. I need to protect my methodology, concealment and my secret that is incorporated in the construction of my device. It makes the difference from having 12” front to back or 36” front to back. For obvious reasons I didn’t want to publicly point out the differences as that would open up a bigger can of worms. And just make it that much easier for the ‘rip off’ builders to copy! In my opinion my public forum were my ads that boldly stated “the ‘Compressed Illusion’ was a rights protected illusion”.

One act insists I should have a problem with Andrew, and as hard as it might be for people to understand, I simply don’t. Andrew had never built one and is not performing it. I don’t need to give his book any publicity with a public forum nor do I wish to harm his reputation. It was after all, independent thought. Most Professional Illusionists or builders however knew when the book first came out and everyone certainly knows by now that the ‘Compressed Illusion’ is my design. Nearly 50 performers have either purchased the rights or have bought the Illusion from a licensed builder. When I have addressed my concerns with a couple uniformed acts and builders who had tried to merge Andrew’s drawings with my ‘Compressed Illusion’, most choose to do the right thing, as you did. (Even though you and I concur that you had never seen photos of mine and were working from the book.) Those who did not cooperate at the time, I have faith as their careers move forward, will realize how important their reputations are and will hopefully destroy the sad monstrosities they have built and come to a licensed builder for a more deceptive prop. It is however, hard to fathom, that even after eight years a Professional act would make such a ridiculous excuse and attempt to hide behind this publication and think it’s all right because “they didn’t know”. When in fact they know now and should do what is ethically correct."


Hopefully there are a few things here which may shed some light on what is a recurring issue.

Just a few words of advice from someone who's been there.

Cheers.
Chris.

Wow thanks for the info guys.
I did find a post on the Magic Café from Daniel Summers on Mar 27 2004 that said

If you had taken the published design you purchased for $40.00, built a 36" square box and performed it exactly as it was written, ( climbed inside and shrunk yourself) you would not have heard from me.


This is what I plan on doing with the exception of changing the dimensions to make the illusion work.

Illusionman2 -

I just finished my own shrinkboy and it was a big hit in its first appearance in our last stage show. It's now in my workshop evolving into version 1.1.

Send me a message if you've got specific questions.

Tips? Yeah, a tip for every illusion you ever build: never use cheap casters. If you think those cheapy 1.5" casters from Home Depot, or worse, the dollar store/job lot, will stand up in the real world, well guess again. It's almost a cliche, but you can tell a lot from an illusion show that rolls on 3 dollar wheels before the effect even starts.

--- Guy