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Sleight of hand feedback
- Thread starter MCmagic
- Start date
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- Tags
- sleight of hand
I was wondering if I could get some feedback on some sleight of hand moves I created.
The first force is a variation on Jay Sankey's Wichita Slip, the difference being the location of the force card. The Wichita Slip is better because the location of the force card covers the discrepency.
The change is apparant in method and isn't an improvement over Marc DeSouza's Shapeshifter which accomplshes the same move but much more elegantly. It just seems too violent for the audience not to suspect a method. Moving the card quickly makes it look suspicious.
Additionally, the method for control is apparant. Moving the deck quickly looks suspicious and the final location of the card makes it easy for the spectator to backtrack what happened.
Although I appreciate you effort and thinking, I think you are making a fundamental mistake in thinking about sleight of hand. Sleight of hand is not doing a move so quickly that the audience doesn't notice. All three of your moves depend on speed and blurring the spectator's ability to follow the action. For the force, Sankey's method provides cover so you can do it at a natural speed. For the change, Shapeshifter has the hands in frame moving slowly causing the card to change quickly. For the control, imaging you had a double-backer and did a DL when you turned the card over. That would be completely imperceptible because the move is done during a "nothing" moment where the spectator is convinced nothing is happening.
The change is apparant in method and isn't an improvement over Marc DeSouza's Shapeshifter which accomplshes the same move but much more elegantly. It just seems too violent for the audience not to suspect a method. Moving the card quickly makes it look suspicious.
Additionally, the method for control is apparant. Moving the deck quickly looks suspicious and the final location of the card makes it easy for the spectator to backtrack what happened.
Although I appreciate you effort and thinking, I think you are making a fundamental mistake in thinking about sleight of hand. Sleight of hand is not doing a move so quickly that the audience doesn't notice. All three of your moves depend on speed and blurring the spectator's ability to follow the action. For the force, Sankey's method provides cover so you can do it at a natural speed. For the change, Shapeshifter has the hands in frame moving slowly causing the card to change quickly. For the control, imaging you had a double-backer and did a DL when you turned the card over. That would be completely imperceptible because the move is done during a "nothing" moment where the spectator is convinced nothing is happening.
Force: I think you can get away with this one occasionally. The quick jolt makes it look a little suspicious that something happened there. Use at your own risk. Most people won't care or say anything and still be impressed, but it can also provoke a heckler into calling you out or ruin the magic a little bit for some people.
Color Change:
I agree you should check out shapeshifter. It's angle proof, looks good, sounds good; however, it's also overused on youtube from what I've seen. So meh, I don't know if that bothers you or not. Bothers me.
I think you can get away with the violent movement. RealityOne gave me the same advice before. I do agree with him, but the more I perform the more I realize lay people don't give a shit and you can get away with some pretty crazy stuff. Watch Blaine's color change here at 3:54:
[MEDIA]
[/MEDIA]
I mean he waves the fuck out that card, but everyone is still impressed and in awe; granted, your move is more violent than that and you're not David Blaine. He literally searched the deck for a 6H placed it on top, and nobody said anything. Misdirection? Maybe. Or maybe it's because he's David Blaine and spectators are already drooling at the trick and he hasn't even pulled out the pack of cards yet. I digress.
My point was: I think you can get away with the color change if you dress it up a little bit. You need to give a little motivation for your actions on that one. Example:
"When I was a kid there was this boy who tried to bully me. Little did he know I watched a lot of WWE back in the day. The Rock, Stonecold Steve Austin, Triple H. I watched them every Sunday so I was basically an expert fighter and killing machine. Anyway watch. Imagine if this King of Spades was him right? I choke slammed him like this (perform change to Queen of Hearts with a drawn in tear) and he started crying like a little girl. Kinda like this."
Control: You lost me here. You flick the deck violently and all of a sudden you have a card that you're placing in the middle. I don't know where that card came from. The top? The bottom? The middle? Your pocket? THIN AIR!? (I know where btw). It's a little too confusing and too much like you did something.
Color Change:
I agree you should check out shapeshifter. It's angle proof, looks good, sounds good; however, it's also overused on youtube from what I've seen. So meh, I don't know if that bothers you or not. Bothers me.
I think you can get away with the violent movement. RealityOne gave me the same advice before. I do agree with him, but the more I perform the more I realize lay people don't give a shit and you can get away with some pretty crazy stuff. Watch Blaine's color change here at 3:54:
[MEDIA]
I mean he waves the fuck out that card, but everyone is still impressed and in awe; granted, your move is more violent than that and you're not David Blaine. He literally searched the deck for a 6H placed it on top, and nobody said anything. Misdirection? Maybe. Or maybe it's because he's David Blaine and spectators are already drooling at the trick and he hasn't even pulled out the pack of cards yet. I digress.
My point was: I think you can get away with the color change if you dress it up a little bit. You need to give a little motivation for your actions on that one. Example:
"When I was a kid there was this boy who tried to bully me. Little did he know I watched a lot of WWE back in the day. The Rock, Stonecold Steve Austin, Triple H. I watched them every Sunday so I was basically an expert fighter and killing machine. Anyway watch. Imagine if this King of Spades was him right? I choke slammed him like this (perform change to Queen of Hearts with a drawn in tear) and he started crying like a little girl. Kinda like this."
Control: You lost me here. You flick the deck violently and all of a sudden you have a card that you're placing in the middle. I don't know where that card came from. The top? The bottom? The middle? Your pocket? THIN AIR!? (I know where btw). It's a little too confusing and too much like you did something.
So here's the rub... would you rather do something you that "most people won't... say anything" or you can "get away with" or use something you "have to dress up a bit" or something that looks natural?
A lay person thinks they know what you did if the think they know when you did something.
P.S. If you do Shapeshifer right it looks nothing like what most folks post on the internet. I'm also willing to bet that fewer people that you perform for have seen Shapeshifter on the internet than will notice odd handling.
This move is actually a lot more similar to Ed Marlo's 'Topper' move (funnily enough, another of Sankey's go to moves). What's missing in @MCmagic 's video though, is the 'large movement' of turning over the hand to cover the 'switch'.
That doesn't change the fact it's still not original and is really just an inferior handling of either/both of those moves. Sorry @MCmagic !
The change looks reminds me of JK Hartman's 'Blow Change' except with a downwards slap rather than an upwards motion to blow on the card. To be honest, I was never that convinced by the Hartman move to begin with (it still had a bit too much 'sudden' movement for me), so this does little to change that opinion.
The control is just confusing, there is too much back and forth going on for anyone to have idea where the chosen card actually is. Whilst you may think this is an advantage, the fact of the matter is that the audience need to be 'sure' you placed the card in the middle. If they can't keep track of the card to begin with that isn't going to be the case.
To be fair, I can forgive not knowing The Wichita Slip, but you've really never heard of the Shapeshifter?! It's a fairly bog standard card move, so I wonder if you should really be focusing on inventing sleights when getting a bit more knowledge under you belt may be a better idea first.
Also, sleights are pretty worthless without context. There are plenty of moves that don't 'fly' when used in isolation, but when used in the right trick work brilliantly. A good example is the 'Jinx Switch' (either a Marlo or Anneman move depending where you look...). If you just demonstrated it to camera in isolation it would look pretty awful, but when done at the right moment in a routine, it's perfect.
I'm not trying to dampen you enthusiasm, just trying to help you improve. I hope you can take this advice the way it is intended. Keep at it. We were all awful once (I still consider myself an intermediate card magician after 20 years!) but we all got there in the end!
Rev