I was curious: Jay Sankey's 22 Blows to the Head; what effects have you got the strongest spectator response from?

My strongest response has come from a personalized Resistance is Futile, though I haven't tried them all out.

What kind of responses have you gotten using effects from this material?


Posted: Dec 18, 2006 10:47pm
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Maybe I'm the only person who owns it.

You also only waited half an hour for someone to respond.

I haven't owned the video that long, but give me a couple more months with it and I'll let you know.

Locked Room Mystery!

I don't own Sankey Blow to the head, but I think personally there are no such things as bad Magic Effect and bad audience...only /badperformer.

Cheers

I've seen effects that were so bad that no one could save them!
:cheers:

True Slim, but surely then it is a bad performer who chooses to perform them!

Simon

Never thought of it that way....Now you got me pondering this
I don't like it when people blame the crowd. Some crowds are better than others, but it's up to you to entertain them

In light of recent performances, Hide, Keep, and Give Away got me a jaw-dropper of a response with a "spontaneous" sort of performance using it. I was considering this as a lead-in or seconder to a mentalism routine...

As well, I capped off this performance with Serial Killer and stirred the waters well enough to cause what I believe was visible discomfort; I decided not to stay around and "interview" the people to see how far off I was.

And because I can't edit the post again -- Has anyone used Divided Attention? I'm considering doing a card-"prediction" fix to this (have 30-ish cards on the paper instead) to lead into maybe a Mind Reach or something...

John Bannon has some good thoughts on this in his introduction to Smoke and Mirrors. And I agree 100%, there are bad effects, even if good performers can make them almost workable.

If you haven't read Smoke and Mirrors, run out and get it!

-Carlos

I think there's plenty of bad magic and bad effects out there. Horrible; Slim - you were right in the beginning. Some of these pieces cannot be salvaged by even the most polished performers. Further, we shouldn't try to. It's common knowledge that some magic just plain sucks. Don't be so coy about it; call a spade a spade.
Not everything is meant to be a winner.

A seasoned performer may take something which looks "not so promising" and create something better with it, or cause it to work more effectively for him/her self. That does not constitute being "bad magic", though it does show the talent, art and science of the magician.

People who spout, "It's the magician NOT the effect" are full of it. Let me go ahead and write a show outline for any of these people, and I will fill it with BAD effects and watch in laughter as they swim through S-Creek.

On the other hand, a bad performer can take a wonderful effect and slaughter it. It works both ways.


j.

With serial killer, do you use his switch or another without the paperclip? The clip seemed like an unnecessary "prop," so I chose to drop it.

Also, if you keep bills of each denomination stacked in your pockets, it becomes possible to just ask for any bill, no prerequisite atall.

I'll have to pop the dvd later and check out some of the other effects spotlighted here.

I do use the paperclip, giving a reason for it, (can't judge whether it's good or not on myself). No occassion has occured yet where someone suspected they were being paperclipped by a "move," but I'm still pretty weak with showmanship, as four of the five years I've been doing this was mostly spent in my room practicing, not experiencing. I'll get there... one day [googly eyes].

I'm interested, qichi, did you find any other effects you'd like to use yet?

I used divided attention quite a lot right after I got the video. I made a word file with the words in the right order, printed it out, cut them (cutting diagonally through the choice word and making the cut match is a very strong subtlety), and carried them around in my wallet.

These days, I tend to favor clip line deluxe from the Mind Mysteries series. It involves a bit more in terms of the props department but kicks bootie because of the choices the spectators can make. Shuffle cut deal is a good impromptu effect (just get a glimpse of what you need to see while removing the cards).

I can't think of anything else I perform straight out of that DVD but it had a lot of nice ideas.

-Carlos