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The
TRICK
BRAIN
CHAPTER TEN
A transformation effect is one in which a person or thing, living or inanimate, changes radically in appearance or nature. As mentioned before, this change may be a conversion in identity, color, size, shape, character-even meaning-so long as there is an essential difference effected, a distinguishable difference. This change does not refer to one of location or position.
As has been pointed out repeatedly, the effect may be instantaneous or gradual. It may take place out in the open or under cover. Concealed from view, of course, the actual change is not seen by the spectator. In this case the spectator sees the result of the transformation. Thus, the actual conversion is implied.
Because it is impossible for us to cause such a change actually, two different objects must be used, one substituted for the other, or the subject must be capable of assuming two or more different aspects. In the former case, the first object is vanished and the second appears in its place.
Again, as is the case with transpositions, in breaking down methods, most often we may consider the transformation as the vanish of one object and the appearance of another in its place. From this viewpoint, we immediately find suggested any of the possible combinations of vanish and appearance principles.
But combination methods must be selected with the limitations imposed by the necessity of achieving a dual effect. Methods must be altered and adapted so that it is possible to blend both the vanish and the appearance into a smooth, practicable, workable, reasonable unit.
It may be stated in general at the beginning, however, that a combination of a vanish and an appearance will supply a method by means of which a transformation may be effected.
Let's see how it has been done in the past.
Some years ago a transformation of a cigarette to a wand was quite popular. The cigarette was taken from the mouth and tossed into the air. It changed to a wand while still in the air.
This was a mechanical device that could supply two identities. Actually, and normally, the device was a celluloid wand with white tips. It was really a rolled sheet of celluloid properly decorated. Normally the sheet, which was about 23/4 inches wide and 12 inches long, presented a tightly rolled tube of celluloid about one-half inch in diameter and twelve inches long. The natural "set" of the plastic caused it to form itself lengthwise.
But when the celluloid sheet was rolled widthwise-across the narrow width of the sheet-it could be formed into a tube about two and three-quarters inches long and, tightly rolled, about five-sixteenth inches in diameter. It was necessary to use pressure to hold it in this shape, as its natural "set" caused it to unroll and assume the wand shape. Because the ends of the wands were white, rolled widthwise, the tube was white. Thus, it resembled a cigarette.
Tossed in the air, after being shown first as a cigarette, the device assumed the wand shape in full view.
Such applications, of course, are merely the principles of collapsibility and expansibility, as discussed before, applied to the transformation effect.
Dr. Ervin invented a change from a billiard ball to a handkerchief that illustrates this idea. A small silk is wrapped in a sheet of thin rubber of similar color. This is placed in the mouth. By drawing in the breath a rubber ball may be formed around the silk, after which the ends are tied tightly. By breaking the rubber, apparently a billiard ball may be changed to a silk.
I have previously referred to Walsh's Cane to Silk. This is a change of a cane to a silk square, as the title indicates. The cane is made of spring steel, tempered to fall into a coil. Inside the cane is a snap fastener secured to the canes tip, around which the spring band coils. The opposite section of the fastener is secured to a silk handkerchief. This is snapped to the inside of the cane's tip.
Pulling out and twisting the steel band to an elongated tube forms the cane. This draws the silk inside. When properly formed, a cap is put over the open end of the cane thus formed. This holds all in place.
To perform the trick the performer merely removes the cap and holds the cane. When he releases the spring it rolls into a compact coil almost instantly. The handkerchief springs into view and affords ample cover to conceal the collapsed cane.
The trick is a complex combination of principles. The handkerchief is concealed in a secret compartment-the hollow center of the cane. The cane is collapsible, the second principle. The handkerchief is expansible, the third basic method. After being collapsed, the cane is concealed behind or within the handkerchief, the fourth principle.
We may also accomplish a transformation by means of substitution. For example, the magician may wrap a yellow billiard ball in a handkerchief. Yet when the handkerchief is removed the ball has changed to red. Actually, the performer has had a red ball concealed within his hand. In the act of wrapping the yellow one it is exchanged for the red one, and the yellow one is carried away. This was the original method used for The Diminishing Pack of Cards.
The effect of the gradual growth of a small bush or plant is accomplished similarly. The performer merely substitutes increasingly larger plants under cover of a cone or a cylinder or a cloth. This, of course, is exchanging within or behind some accessory.
A change may be accomplished, also, by covering an object with a shell representing something else, the shell, of course, being sufficiently larger to contain the object either in its original or collapsed form. The shell is introduced behind, beneath or within some covering accessory usually.
Thus, an apple may be changed to a cabbage, a glass to a bottle, a small ball to a larger one, a red block to a green one-even a spot card to a face card. It would be difficult to change two humans in this manner. But a human could be changed to some type of thing, such as trunk, or a flower bush.
This principle of the shell containing the other object may work both ways. The shell may become the first object that after its removal discloses the second. Or it may be the final thing seen.
Blackstone uses this principle to change a woman to a flower bush. The bush is built upon a cone which when first shown is the inner lining of a large cylinder, fashioned similar to a phantom tube. This cylinder is lowered around the girl. When the cylinder is taken away, the cone is left covering the girl. This could be reversed, with the cone being taken away disclosing the girl.
Closely allied to the last mentioned method, but not quite the same, is the method of concealing the first object behind or within the second. Usually the property of collapsibility of the first object, or expansibility of the second, is involved.
In The Card to Match Box Trick, the card is first shown, then folded under cover of the hand. Then it is turned over and the matchbox, which is glued to the center section of the folding card, is shown in place of the card. The matchbox, of course, covers the card.
The Card to Rose Trick is very much similar. But The Handkerchief to Rose Trick is accomplished through a different application of methods. Here, the rose, which is a hollow cloth one, is suspended behind the hand. (Concealed by an accessory.) Under cover of the handkerchief the hollow rose is brought into the palm, after which the handkerchief is worked into the rose. Finally the rose is shown.
Yet the reverse of this, The Rose to Handkerchief, may be done by another method. The rose-colored handkerchief is folded to represent a rose. It may be attached to some type of stem. It may be pulled out finally, of course, as the handkerchief it is.
These illustrations merely show how different magical problems may be approached, depending upon the articles used and the nature of the effect desired.
Getting back to the method of concealing the first object with the second: Where some tissue sheets are torn and tossed into the air to change to a bouquet, again we have the same principle. The spring flowers are attached to the back of one of the sheets. When the sheets are torn and tossed into the air, the spring flowers expand to form a bouquet that conceals the pieces of paper.
The pistol that changes to a bouquet, the paintbrush color-change of a card, the enlarging thimble, the enlarging card and many others belong to this group.
But some transformation effects are accomplished through bold tactics. Many of these are direct substitutions of other objects without showing the original object to be no longer present. Take the case of The Mutilated Parasol. In the modern version the parasol first shown contains the parasol to be shown second, within itself. After wrapping the original parasol, the second is pulled from the cylinder, whether metal, cloth or paper, without showing the wrapping empty. Actually the first parasol is still there.
Even the older version of the parasol trick was similar in this respect. A substitution of parasols was made without bothering to show that the original one no longer existed. Actually this is good psychology. The audience isn't supposed to know that two parasols are used. Presumably, the parasol first seen is still the one used, even though a change takes place.
Some objects that lend themselves to the principle are changed by turning them inside out, as in the case of the color-changing handkerchief. Fundamentally, this is the employment of the secret compartment principle, each handkerchief in turn being the secret compartment in which the other is concealed.
The pull principle may be expected to be utilized. Built into a hollow ball is a spring reel that operates a spindle to roll up a handkerchief at great speed. The handkerchief, attached to the ball and concealing it, is shown. The pull is released and the handkerchief apparently is transformed to a ball.
One type of pull is built with a clip to accommodate a cigarette. The performer stuffs a quantity of tobacco and a cigarette paper into the pull's receptacle. He takes the cigarette from the clip on the pull, and allows the pull to go out of sight beneath his clothing. Apparently he has transformed a quantity of tobacco and paper into a cigarette.
But this trick could be done in another manner-in fact, in several ways. At random: The cigarette is held at a convenient position within the right coat pocket by means of a clip. The performer places the cigarette paper in the left hand and also pours a quantity of tobacco in the same hand. As he puts the tobacco can or sack back into his right coat pocket, he clips the cigarette in the right thumb crotch. The tobacco and paper are sleeved as he apparently places them into the right hand. Then the cigarette is shown in the right.
All right, so you don't like that method. Perhaps you don't like the sleeving part or the steal from the coat pocket. Figure out something else that suits you better. There are many principle from which to select.
How's this? The tobacco can has a hollow receptacle in the center, opening at the bottom of the can. This receptacle is just large enough to accommodate a cigarette loosely. It is equipped with a release to allow the cigarette to be deposited in the hand. Also, you have a thumb tip on the right thumb.
After the hands are shown empty the performer takes the can into his left hand. He releases the load, securing the cigarette, and puts the can into the right. The right thumb pokes a hole at the top of the left fist, leaving the thumb tip. The tobacco and paper are poured into the thumb tip, which is finally stolen in the usual manner. Again, the tobacco and paper seem to be transformed to a cigarette.
Incidentally, the basic principles we actually applied in the foregoing were two applications of the secret compartment. Both the can and the thumb tip were the secret compartments within which the objects were concealed.
The reel that rolls up one object and unrolls another is an application of the secret compartment principle, too. Such a reel is used for a handkerchief color change. The old Money Machine, which transforms a piece of blank paper into a piece of genuine currency is similar. The blank sheet is rolled up as the bank note unrolls.
When a double envelope is used to change one set of cards for another set, we are again employing the principle of secret compartments for both phases of the transformation.
Since a covering that blends with the background is effective for vanishes and appearances, it follows that the same principle might be applied to transformations. And such is the case. The Expanding Ace consists of two parts, a diamond shaped iris opening and a foundation card with its face painted the color of the pip. With the iris closed down to represent the normal pip, the card is shown. The iris is gradually opened, giving the appearance of the pip gradually enlarging. Thayer manufactured a black art frame, containing a round iris opening, to produce the illusion of a growing ball.
A trick produced in England some decades ago was the transformation of water, poured into a paper tube, to a quantity of serpentine. While the paper was being wrapped into a tube a round container was stolen and wrapped within it. The water went into the container and the serpentine came from a space in the same object. Before unwrapping the paper tube at the end of the trick, the container was dropped into the pile of serpentine with which it blended in color. Here again we have the secret compartment principle. But the two applications of this method are combined with bringing the accessory behind another property and the blending of backgrounds for its eventual concealment.
The coffee vase is a change of cotton to coffee. The cotton packs into one secret compartment when the coffee is introduced into the vase beneath an accessory. Later, a smaller quantity of cotton, in a shell at the top of the coffee container, is stolen in a secret compartment within a shallow cap. Similar applications may be seen in the dye tube trick, the coin vase and others.
Transformations have been accomplished by boldly removing the original subject disguised and substituting a second from a concealed hiding place. The Rice Bowls Trick will reveal the idea. Two bowls are shown and one is filled with rice. The rice apparently doubles-a change in quantity-after which it is transformed to water.
One of the bowls, of course, is filled with water and covered with a disc. The rice is put into the unprepared bowl. When the bowls are reversed, apparently the quantity doubles. The rice resting on the secret compartment in the first bowl causes this. The original rice is boldly removed, disguised as leveling it off. Then the bowls are put together again to reveal the rice apparently having been changed to water. The water, of course, comes from the secret compartment.
Under another section we revealed that a mirror could create a secret compartment. When you have a secret space, you can always take one object from this hiding place and put the original there instead. The new object, then, seems to be the original changed.
The mirror glass illustrates this. One object is secretly concealed on one side while the other is deposited in the other. Reversal of the glass makes the change seem to take place. Petrie-Lewis Manufacturing Company made a transparent tube of similar construction that gave the impression of a transformation while the tube was taken in the hands and waved up and down, the tube being reversed in the action.
Undoubtedly, the most spectacular transformation method, from the viewpoint of the spectator, is that utilizing the plate glass reflection. I have referred to this before here. Back in 1926, in an issue of THE MAGIC WAND, Stuart Luciene described an illusion called The Princess of Bakhten. A girl, wrapped in a mummy cloth in full view of the audience, is placed in a sarcophagus. Her spectre is seen to materialize through the mummy cloth and to leave. Upon unwrapping the figure, the girl is seen to have vanished. In this form the trick is, of course, a vanish.
The sarcophagus was large enough to accommodate an open mummy case standing upright. The mummy case was placed rather back in the sarcophagus. Between the mummy case and the opening of the tomb was a sheet of plate glass, set diagonally at a forty-five degree angle. In a recess on the left side of the sarcophagus was a duplicate figure also wrapped in mummy cloth. The tomb was fitted with lights so that either the figure in the recessed compartment or the original figure could be illuminated.
With the light on to illuminate the original figure, the light being behind the plate glass, of course, the duplicate figure would not reflect in the plate glass. But with the light extinguished behind the plate and the one on illuminating the duplicate figure, the duplicate figure, properly placed, would be seen in place of and apparently at the exact location of the original.
Without going into detail, the original method follows: The girl is wrapped and carried into the sarcophagus through a door at the back and behind the plate glass. Of course, the lights behind the glass are on. After the performer leaves, the lights are turned up on the duplicate figure, and the figure of an empty wire-wrapped form is substituted in her place.
This action is not visible to the audience, as the image of the duplicate figure is seen.
After the substitution of the forms, the light is brought up behind the plate glass once more while that upon the duplicate figure was lowered. The girl takes her place in front of the duplicate figure. This gives the appearance of the spectral figure emerging from the wrappings when the proper light is brought up again.
When the lights upon the duplicate figure are lowered once more and brought up behind the plate glass, the performer enters the sarcophagus and carries the still-wrapped figure out. He unwraps the windings. But the girl is seen to have vanished. Apparently she became spectral and walked away.
This trick could be converted to a transformation merely by substituting a wrapped figure of a man instead of the empty wire frame. Appropriate business; controlled as indicated in the above explanation, could provide the illusion of a change of identity taking place.
As a matter of fact, Kellar's Blue Room Illusion was basically accomplished through this method, although other features added more complexities and the method had several added subtleties.
A direct transformation of a woman to a man, without the wrapping, could be accomplished in this manner. In fact, I myself produced an illusion some years ago, employing this principle, in which a man was transformed to a skeleton.
The principle need not be limited to human beings. It may be applied in a smaller form to inanimate objects.
Similar to methods already mentioned, yet differing in some detail, certain transformations are accomplished by concealing the second object behind or within the first and then removing the first to reveal the second. Kolar's Card Trick is an excellent example.
Here a card with a semicircle cut from one end is used for a key card. A card is selected and returned to the pack. The performer volunteers to find the card behind his back. But he brings forth the wrong card. He has a spectator initial a sticker by means of which he attaches a length of ribbon to his wrong card. The card is replaced in the deck. When the card is pulled out it is seen to have changed to the correct card, although the sticker which attaches the ribbon is still the original one.
Briefly, When the card is replaced after selection the deck is riffled and cut so that the key card comes to the face of the selected card, when it is returned to the deck. Behind his back the performer brings forth the key card with the selected card behind it. The sticker is apparently attached to the face of the wrong card, but actually the sticker is secured to the face of the selected card behind it, as the sticker is stuck where the semicircle is cut from the key card. Replacing both cards in the center of the deck as one, the spectator is told to pull the ribbon and, of course, the correct card, to which the ribbon actually has been attached, comes forth.
This principle is capable of application to many other objects. It is applied in the parasol trick version mentioned before.
The principle of secret egress or ingress, of the first or second objects, coupled with secret compartments, is applicable to transformations. The old cup used for changing coffee to confetti has two compartments. In one is placed a quantity of confetti. The other has a hole in the bottom that leads to a hollow saucer. Coffee is poured into the second compartment. It flows into the saucer. When the performer makes a tossing motion towards the audience, apparently the coffee has changed to confetti.
The Plug Box may be similarly applied.
Again, we may disguise the first subject to represent the second. This happens in the cocktail trick. The original liquid is disguised as the desired liquid simply through the concentrated flavoring and coloring matter that has been placed in the glass. Several of the changing card tricks of the prepared variety use this. Fanned, except for the face card that is exchanged, the corners of the cards are made in such a way that they represent different cards when reversed end for end. Sometimes they are made to reverse from back to front as well. One type of changing card is so made that the corner index and pips may be changed. Another type has a mechanical change of all of the pips.
It's a Pip liquid, applied over a heart or diamond, disguises these until the coating is removed.
This identical stratagem is used in The Enchanted Card Slide. A card is placed in the frame and the frame is slid partially out to reveal its identity. Actually, the identity of another card, made possible by the mechanism of the frame, is shown. Then the substitute card is retained in the frame and the original card is shown, having apparently changed identity.
The old paddle turnover move is an indirect application of the secret compartment idea. It has been applied to paddles, knives, colored cubes and many other objects. Briefly: A knife is made with different colored handles on each side. By means of the turnover move the same side is showed as both sides. Then when a half turn is given, the handles appear to have changed color. Both sides are shown to have changed by doing the turnover move again.
Both Al Baker and Bill McCaffery have developed clever routines with paper matches, using this principle. A strip-tease routine was developed with a cocktail paddle. And a variation of this move was even used in connection with slates.
Transformations have been accomplished by changing the relative surroundings to gain an illusion of change. One of the best diminishing card routines in the repertoire of magic was explained in C. Lang Neil's THE MODERN CONJURER. The effect was accomplished by making successively smaller fans while holding the cards deeper and deeper in the hand.
The ball and tube trick where a small metal ball seems to change size and sink into a tube is another illustration. The ball doesn't change size at all. The effect is accomplished by allowing it to gradually sink with an inner, unsuspected shell tube controlling the movement and eventually being shown as the original tube. The Boomerang Trick, popular a few years ago, relied on this principle.
There are many chemical transformations. Particularly, the one cited under transpositions, where the opposite glass of ink is not used, is an excellent effect. Of course, most of these chemical tricks are essentially color changes.
The principle of using the bulk of a material as a secret compartment, cited in the case of transpositions, is usable in many ways. In the case of the transposition cited, the bulk of the rice concealed an orange. But suppose that bulk were substituted for a shell simulating that bulk. We might cite The Bran Vase, The Coffee and Milk Trick or The Candy Jar as instances. In all of these cases, the supposed bulk of the material serves to supply the secret hiding place. In the case of the bran vase, an inner shell containing the object to which the bran apparently changes, is scooped up in the act of filling the vase. To the top, simulating the vase being filled to overflowing, is secured a quantity of bran. The coffee and milk vase change is similar, except that the empty cups are exchanged for the loaded ones under cover of the boxes from which the confetti is being scooped. Of course, in both examples shallow covers take away the tops simulating the overflowing containers.
The candy vase or glass, wherein a container full of bran is transformed to candy or other objects, is the same, except that the shell fake carries the imitation of bulk bran down the sides as well as at the top. Either a deep metal cover or a cloth of some kind serves as the cover for removing the shell.
All of these tricks may be modernized by changing the type of container to something in common use today and using some currently common bulk material suited to the type of act. A performer may scoop out many different materials, or even fill a container from a barrel or a bottle and exchange it for a duplicate container containing the shell. Beneath the shell may be almost anything under the sun as long as its size may be accommodated within.
One of the first tricks with which many of us became familiar was the old changing card that was a series of three flaps, each with a different card face. The flaps were folded down successively in passing the hand over the card. The same principle, with the addition of a spring, is still valuable for a transformation. In this case the flap when released would swing down instantly for a visible change.
Spring blinds, also very fast, supply possibilities for changes in full view.
Thurston used to do a transposition of a girl in a narrow box, which is adaptable to transformations. A girl was clamped to the rear of the box, in a standing position. When the door was closed and immediately reopened, the girl was found secured upside down. Yes. It's the revolving rear panel we have encountered before.
Many of the secret compartment exchanges are accomplished through using reversible containers. The Hindoo Paper Packet Trick, which is two separate packets glued back to back, is such an application, as is the familiar Tea Canister.
Tight-fitting shells such as that used in The Candle Tube, containing a secret space within themselves for concealment of the second object, are extremely useful for this effect. Usually the shell represents the solid first object, as in this case a candle. Afterwards the shell becomes a part of the cover or container, leaving the second object in what is apparently the original space.
Of course, these shells do not have to fit tightly, as we have seen in examples cited before. But they do have to be secreted in some manner. The method of secreting the shell does not matter much as long as it is deceptive.
Naturally, it is impossible to discuss all methods that may accomplish a transformation. Probably I have covered the bulk of different applications in this chapter.
It must be remembered, as I have repeatedly said, method may be identical even though the objects themselves may not resemble those in the example at all. In casting about for a method for your trick, it is unquestionably far better for you to substitute the name of the object you wish to use for that given in the example. In this way suggestions come to you for your specific problem.
Reading the text in this way will almost automatically eliminate the impractical methods. Try it, when you have a problem.
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