Good Morning Al,

I see your "Way Back Machine" must be broken again, and things a bit slow in the cornfield I suppose.

Just the same, have a great day.

-Mb

Here's an example of a well done demo.
See second two videos:

http://www.axelhecklau-shop.com/lng/en/m......guage=en

A side bar to this question is the phenonomen of buying (perhaps like an addict)
when one is "newer" in magic.

Like Silverstein wrote, "we" sometimes are in search of the perfect high (or in our case trick, prop or routine)

Recently saw a cartoon of someone watching a commercial ...the ad said No Interest with audio that said No Interest until 2015.

The caption of read, I have no interes, and he changed the channel.

The slickness is a sign of the times. As are folks that bring out things that have been in Tarbell or other sources as new.

Value of the commercial and the product is truely in the eye of the beholder.

2nd side note (G7) check out the Brain Games episode on how advertisers get us to buy.
3rd side note, I learned about this National Geographic program while surfing this section.

4th side note...

a man with experience (fill in your own definition here) meets a man with money.
The man with experience gets the money...
and the man with money gets an experience. (fill in your own pronoun ...man/woman/teen/he/she etc. etc. etc...


Harris
still 2 old to know it all

Harris:::: Thanks for reminding me of that old story (Man with experience and man with money) It was TRUE 30 years ago, and it's still TRUE today!!!!!!

On the wall in the club rooms of the SHOWMEN'S LEAGUE in Chicago, is a neat little framed sign: "YOU CANNOT SMARTEN UP A CHUMP."

Frances Marshall had a little sign over the shipping table at Magic Inc.::: "IF YOU CAN'T HAVE IT HERE BY NOON, THERE IS NO NEED TO SEND IT. I DO MY SHOW AT HALF PAST ONE, AND NEED THIS TRICK TO END IT.

Yea that's great! Reminds me of the old "give me a trick I can do in my show tonight!" But this is even faster!

I worked in a magic shop for awhile.
I often heard, "What's cheap, easy to do, can be done on stage or close-up, and is AMAZING."
Perhaps that is the kind of people these promos are aimed at.
The promos are not progressive, the media that is availaible to magnifiy the promotions are what is progressive.
Like Dick and David imply, the message is as old as mankind.
Al Schneider

Agreed. I'm only 38, but I sound like my dad when I say that I'd prefer a book to a DVD/online video. The one upside to a video is that you can see the handling, but you can't just pull it down and reference it like Erdnase.

:bikes:

Yeah, nothing much has changed alright, just that everything is different now.

To elaborate on Dick's post just a little... W. C. Fields used to say, "Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump."

Quite a shame what people believe is alright to do to suckers and chumps. Says quite a bit more about the folks that seem to know exactly what to do with such people that, I guess just ain't looking. Hmmm.

I'm just sayin'.

I really don't mind anything effect promoters want to do; as long as you get at least ONE complete start to finish shot of the effect! With all the rapid angle changes and edits to just show the end result and audience reactions, it is almost impossible to see if the REAL sequence of actions are natural and something I want to add to my working repertoire. The "Hollywood" version seldom resembles the "Reality" version.
I suppose that's why the thread for selling tricks and effects always has plenty of action: you buy something and find its not a good fit. I always think "Gee, if they had only shown me it would look like this, I could have saved time and money!" Oh well.

We have all seen how the internet and video promote and manipulate effects to appear much more convicing and magical then they are. Just to seperate the seekers of knowlege and true magic from there money. Thankfully there are some of us who are honest enough to convey the truth to others before they are relieved of there hard earned cash. So in the immortale words of Mr.Bradey "caveat emptore or buyer beware". And I agree Stephon lets see some reality. Recently watching some of the coin in the bottle video promotions the reactions and the effect are so manipulated it is funny and hard to believe. But I am sure have made quite a bit of money.

I don't mind them exercising their creative muscles, but somewhere in the promo, I'd like to see the routine ( or enough of it so I know what it is ). Then when I play it again, I can go right to the spot I want to see and decide if it's something I want to do.

To Merc Man:

I'm at a university in the UK which has a lot of international students, and its very possible to get those crazy Blaine-like reactions with the right spectator. My friend and I were compared to Jesus after I made a sponge ball appear in her hand and he did 2-card monte on her! I had one guy look at me with a very serious face and ask: "it is just a trick... right?" and looked genuinely worried until I reassured him it was sleight of hand! Most English people give boring reactions, but not all.


Back to question:
I think camera cuts are necessary for these videos because there are effects that can be worked out on camera but work well in real life. I do a 4 coin production that is blindingly obvious on camera, but with misdirection, works well live. Although I agree that the premise of the effect should be as clear as possible.

I produced and directed in L.A. and grew tired of studios and other clients who felt the need to follow a fad instead of properly telling a story or selling a product. "We want that blue/green effect!", "it needs to be 'edgy'", "I want it to look like MTV". I had people say that no one would pay attention if my cuts were too long. If any shot was longer than one second on one project I had to cut it! I had lots of 20 something execs constantly kicking people to the curb because they heard of another 20 something who was more edgy or whose camera moves were more shaky than the last.

I love artistic expression and wouldn't compare a Penguin-Type web demo to a Ponta video, but I tend to prefer the former when I am trying to decide if I want to by an effect. My biggest resentment is that my mind is thinking that the trick would cost $50 instead of $100 if they didn't spend so ***ed much on the commercial. And while we are at it, some effects are easier to understand with a DVD, but I don't really have a problem with just printed instructions. I love going into a magic shop and seeing that the instructions for an old trick are just a copy of an old typed document that was then "mimeographed" before at some point being "xeroxed"

I am just getting to see your point. The magic industry is not large. When something is brought out, sales are very limited. I publish books. People do not like the way I edit my books. I am not good at grammer and I miss things even when I try. On of my goals in producing a product is to keep the price as low as possible. If you read about publishing books, all the pros say to hire a professional to do the editing. OK, I have had offers to help edit my books. This is a problem because I am trying to get out a number of books and when I finish one, I want it on the shelf immediately so it will start producing money now. If someone is editing a book for me, they won't get it done by tomarrow. I had someone helping me once. He couldn't get to it for ten weeks. Man, I can't do business that way. But, more to the point. If I hired an editor, I would not recover that cost for years. I need to pay rent now. As to FlightRisk's point, those videos appear as if they cost money. I suspect he would know. Due to the sales volume in magic, to recover that money would mean really jacking the price up. I now see his point as being very accurate. Well, that is the money side of things. About the style and art of these videos, I agree with his point there. They look "me too," lack clarity, often present some very old principle, have an eyeball two inches from the camera, and so on. I am not sure if I am embarassed for the producer or just bored with all the camera waving.

Al Schneider

I think all of this is just a progression, some you like some you don't, like any other tunnel we pass through. Might not like it but it's all part of a brighter day ahead. I'm just sayin', but remember how older folks didn't like Rock & Roll, and you know they hated Rap music but t's all part of it, whatever the "It" ends up becoming.

As to your point about old typed documents, I remember once going back to Tannen's in NYC after they had moved a few times from the original Times Square area I visited as a boy, and asked if they still had an old card trick called Gamble Amble that I used to have as a kid. They didn't, and were puzzled as to it but quickly looked it up and threw all the cards together and then copied the actual old set of instructions they happened to have on it. What a coincidence, right? But the trick was actually/originally done by the old man, Lou Tannen himself. I just smiled as what was old was new yet again.