Hey everyone,
After being amazingly entertained for several months by threads linking to my YouTube videos, I thought it was about time to join this board.
I guess I don't actually need to introduce myself anymore but okay, just for those who want to know more about me: I am Mark Hilkemeijer, also known as Mystery Mark whenever there is magic involved. I live in the Netherlands and own my own production company specialized in music, magic, software and talent, being head of the music and magic departments myself. (I used to own the talent department as well but that one was moved to NYC a while ago.) Because the business is doing fine but is amazingly fragile I decided to go to uni some months ago, just to get myself some backup for if anything would go wrong.
Anyhow, back to business. Now, I don't want this to become one hell of a huge post but on the other hand I want to clear up some things so I'll try to do my best.
First off, the reason why we released everything in limited amounts is because we want the art of magic to stay an art. Although you might have heard me saying in some video that magic is about the performance instead of the methods we would still be nowhere without them.
However, I don't believe in mass releases. Two days after we released a downloadable tutorial it was already available in torrent-format, which took us quite some time and pain in the ass to have removed from the web. By releasing the products in limited amounts we reduce the chance of something appearing on the internet (piracy or YouTube tutorials) dramatically, and we can ask for quite a high price for our products as well because they will be sold anyways.
This obviously would also reduce the chance of having reviews and videos of others appear on the internet, but we only see that as a good thing because once a performance isn't done properly on camera, a performance could turn into exposure. (We tell everyone who buys a release and wants to film it, or a part of it, to at least ask us if it was done properly, before sharing it with the rest of the world.)
Also, to find people who have seen me performing in real life or by online streaming, or those who own one or some of my releases, really isn't all that hard. And eventually there indeed will be a video popping up somewhere.
Second, I'm not like a superhuman. Most of the effects, like the color changes and 'The Flash', have been out there for a couple of years already. It's not that I come up with such a trick every day or week. And most of them are basically variations to things that have already been out there for quite a while.
Third, as said by someone who just bought my 'MTL' control: "The question is not if the sleights or gimmicks exist, the question is if those videos are fake or real." (That's not an exact quote but at least it was something along those lines as I don't have directly access to it myself). Do realize that the people who know how it's done, know what they have to look for and know what the effects should look like. None of those videos was actually lacking anything, instead, some of them even show too much.
Fourth and last for now, no matter how you look at it, I have had quite some people come up with amazing and original methods to some of the effects. I'm totally supporting originality and creativity and I hope you do too.
I'm in no way trying to make you think different about my magic. If you think all of my stuff is fake and that I'm the biggest liar on this planet, go ahead, that's the internet. If you like my magic, thanks a lot! I appreciate what all of you have been saying about me and my effects, and I certainly will for everything that will be said. Thanks a lot!
