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Matthew W Inner circle New York 2456 Posts |
Here is a video of his FISM act.
http://wandonline.com/?p=64 I like how clever he gets with the big cards.
-Matt
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JamesTong Eternal Order Malaysia 11213 Posts |
Thanks for sharing. He is really good, isn't he?
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Matthew W Inner circle New York 2456 Posts |
Very good, but I hope he was not playing a full room. Not much reaction from the audience. I wonder who was on before him.
It is easy to see that a lot of work went into putting that routine together. I love the giant electric deck. That is awesome! -Matt
-Matt
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trashmanf Loyal user 300 Posts |
There is a better-filmed quality version of this FISM act on youtube. I love his giant card work especially the fans and the spring he does.
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Dynamike Eternal Order FullTimer 24148 Posts |
I like his split fans the most.
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JamesTong Eternal Order Malaysia 11213 Posts |
During the FISM competition, he gets a lot of responses from the magicians, especially during the giant cards production. If this particular You Tube clip performance is targeted towards the lay audience, then this may indicate the audience may not be that impressed. The reactions from the lay audiences and from the magicians will be different.
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kipling100 Loyal user 260 Posts |
Yeah, his split fans are the best I've seen. The fans don't shrink before they're split AND they are well-sized if he's just holding the stock the whole time.
Does anyone know if he is doing something different? I've been watching his videos for a while and I keep on getting the impression that he has some nuance that makes his split fans look significantly better than any other I've seen. |
kipling100 Loyal user 260 Posts |
It almost looks like he is doing something similar to a method in one of Elmsley's books, where the fans aren't split, but just part of the stock is produced and fanned.
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trashmanf Loyal user 300 Posts |
If my sources are correct, this may be the technique known as Marlo's split fan productions and it makes conventional split fan productions look like slime by comparison.
the technique involves riffling cards off the pointer finger before making the fan so that most of the stock never get fanned but is immediately re-backpalmed. that's why he can dump the fanned cards so cleanly and keep the same number of cards in every fan! |
kipling100 Loyal user 260 Posts |
Interesting. I have marlo's card fan productions booklet, but I think the conventional split fans are discussed there (retaining stock as the bottom card). I don't remember though so I'll have to check. Do you know specifically where this technique is described?
Thanks |
Steven True Special user Bonney Lake,WA 765 Posts |
I could not get the link to load up the video so I went on youetube to watch. WOW!!!!! That guy is unbeleiveble. Beauty and perfection at such a young age. I sat with my mouth wide open. A fantastic routine.
Steven |
Anatole Inner circle 1912 Posts |
Kipling 100 may be thinking of Ganson's _Card Magic by Manipulation_ in which the author writes (page 226 of _Routined Manipulation Finale_) "Careful scrutiny reveals that the number of cards in the fan becomes less (due to the stock being stolen), just before they are thrown down." It was that observation that prompted Ganson to develop his own fan production technique. Interestingly in his book _Expert Manipulation of Playing Cards_ Ganson teaches the conventional split fan technique, so his revelation of producing a fan of 8 cards or so rather than the whole stock must have come between the publication of the two books.
Trashmanf wrote: "If my sources are correct, this may be the technique known as Marlo's split fan productions and it makes conventional split fan productions look like slime by comparison. the technique involves riffling cards off the pointer finger before making the fan so that most of the stock never get fanned but is immediately re-backpalmed. that's why he can dump the fanned cards so cleanly and keep the same number of cards in every fan!" Is it possible you're thinking of the "Card Fan Production" described in _The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley_ where on page 121 Stephen Minch describes the reasoning so: "His [Elmsley's] idea was to bring to the front of the hand only those cards needed for the fan of the moment, while leaving the balance of the stock back palmed." This is a slightly different technique from the one Ganson used. Fig. 92 on page 122 shows the thumb separating a group of six cards from the main stock. Minch quotes Elmsley as saying, "In retrospect I think the standard split fan technique is still the better approach when done well." That to me suggests that Elmsley acknowledged the weakness of the standard method and was trying to find an improved technique but in the final analysis felt that the traditional method was better. Perhaps Elmsley's suggested solution was conceived before Ganson published his solution in _Routined Manipulation Finale_. It is interesting to note that magicians seem to be more critical of the standard fan production than lay audiences are. I don't think the lay audience cares how many cards are in the fan, although I do cringe a little if a magician produces a fan of only four cards. Why is it necessary to produce more than, say, three fans of cards from a single stock in the first place? To the lay audience, if you produce three fans when you come out and then steal a stock from your body to produce three more fans, in the audience's mind the impression is simply "The magician produced six fans of cards." I did some backpalm card fans in the backroom of a magic shop with some non-manipulation magicians watching and one of them said he couldn't believe I could backpalm an entire deck of cards (the impression he got from the number of fans I produced) when actually the total number of cards was the result of stealing two extra stocks after the first stock had been exhausted. Apparently he didn't catch the two steals. (It surprises me sometimes how ignorant many novice--and sometimes even more experienced--"trick box" apparatus magicians are of basic sleight techniques.) ----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez
----- Sonny Narvaez
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kipling100 Loyal user 260 Posts |
Thanks Amado!
I have Ganson's Card Magic by Manipulation -- I'll have to check it out again. I read Steven Minch's description of the Elmsley method before. That's what I thought of when I first saw Uchida's split fans. I've been doing the fans the way I learned from Jeff McBride's tape years ago, which I think is great. The benefits seem to be that 1) you can easily make the broadest fan possible; and 2) you can show both sides of your hand prior to the split. The only problem I have with the method is that there is generally some varying degree of up and down motion with the hands prior to and during the split, to cover the decrease in cards. When I saw Uchida's FISM act, I was pretty impressed with how clean it looks when you DON'T move your hand so much. |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
The illusion is plucking a fan of cards from the air. That is what covers the up and down motion, as you put it.
The same old downfalls, so wrapped up in 'The Moves', they forget about they are creating a moment of wonder of producing something from nothing. My research discovered that in the early days, card productions were in same packets. Only producing a small fan of say 6 to 8 cards at a time. Then Channing Pollack, taught by Neil Foster, brought into the method of producing the full deck, then dropping. Both methods are correct, but the latter looks better and is easier on the fingers. |
kipling100 Loyal user 260 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-12-18 11:21, wmhegbli wrote: Just to clarify, the movement I was talking about is the motion as one is dropping the cards, not when they are produced. I agree with you that the "full deck" version looks great. My only comment is that there is generally a quick up and down motion to cover the split. Ostensibly, it just looks like one is giving it a little extra when tossing the cards down. However, if one wanted to create the illusion of just dropping the cards (as opposed to tossing it), the full deck version seems to have its drawbacks in that it requires additional movement. I'm not sure when you meant by being wrapped up in the moves; I'm just interested in perfecting the illusion, and Uchida's video made me re-think the split fans a little bit. Thanks! |
Anatole Inner circle 1912 Posts |
The premise of making cards appear can be approached from a couple of perspectives:
1) There are invisible cards floating all around the performer, and they only become visible when his magical hand touches them. 2) There are no invisible floating cards at all, and the magician is just producing the cards "ex nihilo." (To save you looking that Latin phrase up, I'll paste here the definition from Google: "The Latin phrase ex nihilo means 'out of nothing." It often appears in conjunction with the concept of creation, as in creation ex nihilo, meaning "creation out of nothing". Isaac Asimov pointed out that in Genesis, God was able to create much of the universe simply by speaking it into being--Let there be light! But when it came to the human race, he didn't say "Let there be people." He took some dust and transformed it into a being made in his image. And before someone else calls me on this reference--I am familiar with the theory that there are conflicting stories in Genesis due to multiple authors of the book.) If you are producing cards "out of nothing," then it doesn't matter what your hand does or where the fingers are when the cards appear. You could theoretically produce 52 cards all from the same spatial coordinates. If you are producing cards that exist but are invisible to the eye until your finger touches them, then yes, you would probably reach into different spatial coordinates of the stage to produce them. The masters used to admonish us to think of "the way a real magician would do it." Face it. A real magician would not produce cards the way we do at all, because there would be no motivation for a real magician to produce cards and then just throw them into a hat. This is what makes card productions (in fans or singles) different from coin productions such as the Miser's Dream. It makes sense to want to be able to pull coins out of the air. After you've dropped a bunch in a bucket, you could take the bucket full of coins to the store and buy something. It makes no sense at all to pull cards out of the air. It's not like we're thinking "After I get all 52, I'll invite some friends over for a game of poker." Even if you could really do it, it is a relatively useless talent compared to producing coins. That's what made Cardini's act so perfect. The whole point was that the magician is drunk and these cards keep appearing in an annoying manner. Cardini had no motivation to produce the cards. They--and the billiard balls and cigarettes--just kept appearing, even against his will. To my mind, he was a character in a predicament, much like the Sorceror's Apprentice. (I've always thought a stage act based on the Sorceror's Apprentice would be intriguing. All those "mismade" tricks would have a raison de'tre instead of being sucker tricks.) Many of the classics of magic have no raison de'tre. What possible usefulness is the power to link eight rings together? There's no game with eight rings. They can't be worn as ornamental accoutrements. What about the cups and balls. What benefit is there to being able to make little balls appear and disappear? Making oranges appear under the cups would be a useful talent--especially if you're hungry. But making three little balls appear under three metal cups--or making three balls that are under three different cups all magically assemble under one cup--has no utility value whatsoever. We do it only because--we can. I think the main appeal of magic is not to play to a sense of greed (the most logical motivation for the miser's dream) or to our sense of need (the most logical motivation for having a device like a lota bowl that always has water in it)--but to our sense of wonder. The vast majority of magic effects--whether close-up or stage--have no raison d'etre. What value is there to being able to saw someone in half with a buzz saw without injuring her/him? What value is there in being able to make a human being float in air? What value is there in being able to push a cigarette or a feather through a quarter? On pp 145-163 of his book _Magic as a Hobby_ Bruce Elliott describes an act of producing dollar bills from the BP. That type of production has a strong raison d'etre, and although Elliott says that Kolma did this type of act, it's hard for me to imagine that you could get away with it using American paper money. Some foreign bills are smaller and maybe yes they would not flash. But why make bills appear at your fingertips when it is more logical to show an empty wallet and make money appear ex nihilo (courtesy of Richard Himber's genius). I think in the final analysis that magic is like beauty which, according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, has an inherent raison d'etre whether anyone else thinks so or not. But if beauty is it's own excuse for being, then we also have to remember that beauty is also in the eye of the beholder. Maybe magic is, too. ----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez
----- Sonny Narvaez
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