<- |Top |Showmanship For Magicians |Trick Brain|Magic By Misdirection |Mail |->
<- |!*! |C |I |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6|7 |8 |9 |10 |11 |12 |13 |14 |15 |16 |17 |18 |19 |20 |21 |22 |23 |24 |25 |26 |27 |28 |29 |30 |31 |32 |33 |34 |35 |->
The CHAPTER SIX
When you provide secret ingress from a secret place of concealment, one more production device is demonstrated.
This principle carries with it not only a secret place of concealment of that which is to be produced but emphasizes a secret passageway from the source of supply to the place of production.
The Wand From Purse reveals this application. Here you have a place of production too small to contain the object to be produced. The sleeve is the place of secret concealment. The passageway is the slit in the bottom of the purse. To produce the wand one simply takes the purse from the pocket, slips the opening of the slit over the end of the wand, opens the purse and pulls the wand from the sleeve.
Another example is the large illusion cabinet that acquires its "load" via a plank shoved through a trap in the backdrop. Others would include: The production of a cane from the vest pocket. The production of a load from a hat, the hat being equipped with a trap door in the crown and the load coming actually from a repository beneath the table top.
Particularly excellent as an example is The Water Fountains illusion. The water to be produced is stored in gravity feed tanks, or in pressure tanks. By means of tapered connections in the floor, or in the various articles to be used as accessories, the water is conveyed secretly to the desired location. A series of controlled valves keeps the water from appearing before the connections are properly arranged, during the routine. Thus, while the water may eventually appear at the tips of the fingers, on the edge of a fan or anywhere else, as a fine fountain, the secret passageways, hidden in the clothing, or within the accessories, is the real foundation of the trick as a mystery.
This principle, too, supplies the method of accomplishing some of the box nest productions.
The use of an apparently secure fastening which would seem to preclude the possibility of an addition, but which may be manipulated in some manner to permit the addition of the object to be produced, comes within this classification.
Although the principle is used in several tricks of disappearance, I have not succeeded in finding a single trick in which this application has been used in effects of appearance or production. The nearest thing to it—and really, belonging here—is the so-called Bolted Slates .
In use, the slates are shown blank, after which they are bolted together. The medium, apparently secured restrained, is placed in the same room or cabinet. After a period of time the medium is found to be still securely tied. And the slates are seen to be bolted together, even though locks or seals are put on the bolts originally, not having been tampered with to all appearances. Yet messages are found on both inside faces of the slates.
Of course, it is possible to separate the slates when bolted, with identifying seals on the bolts. The slates are separated without disturbing this fastening. Having separated the slates, the medium writes the message and puts them together again.
There have been a few examples of appearances accomplished through methods of optical projection. Most of these have been the production of a spectre. Naturally some type of stereopticon projects the image. Usually this image is a light one on a dark background. Quite satisfactory projection may be made on fairly dense smoke, as from an incense burner.
One projector for this type of work in connection with mediumistic effects is a small one, of flashlight type, shaped like an automatic pistol.
Coming under this heading, too, is the projection of the image of an object from behind a screen. During the apparent materialization, the object seems to be created in the full illumination of a light flooding the screen from behind.
If the object is brought into position behind some translucent object, such as a screen, it will seem to materialize gradually if it is moved towards the screen slowly while backlit.
The best example of this is a spirit painting trick.
Two frames are shown. Both appear to be blank. One actually is blank. But the other has a painting on its surface. The painting is in translucent colors. Over the painting is a shell. This is designed to make the second frame look blank.
The painting is developed in a large picture frame. Inside of the box built into the picture frame is a device that will cause the framed painting to move backwards and forwards a few inches. A thread accomplishes movement forward.
Several frames are used but a blank is on top of the stack, with the real painting covered with the shell second. Both frames are lifted off. The picture and shell are shown first. They are replaced on the stack. The shell side is downward so that the painting itself may be lifted off, leaving the shell on the stack.
The blank frame is shown and held up to the light. It is turned face towards the audience. Then the real painting is taken from the stack, leaving behind the shell. It is brought forward, back towards the audience, and placed against the blank frame. The picture and the blank frame are face to face.
Both are picked up together. They are given a half-turn in being placed into the picture frame. When they are in place the performer pushes the real picture back from the blank frame. It travels on the sliding carriage built into the structure supporting the ornamental frame.
With the real picture removed at a short distance, the light behind both is turned on. The light traveling through the real picture becomes diffused. The picture is not visible. The performer puts his hand down back of the blank frame, which is in front, and holding it against the blank shows the shadow of his hand.
Afterwards, the lights being lowered except for that behind the apparatus, the real picture is moved forward gradually. It seems to materialize. Finally when it is against the blank frame its details are all clear. Both frames are removed and given a half-turn in the act. The picture is shown.
Anything translucent may be used for the screen. At random I can suggest a cambric window shade, a fine china plate, a sheet of white celluloid, a piece of parchment, a piece of paper. If you give this some thought many things would suggest themselves.
If the screen surface is flat it will be necessary to select an object which has at least one side approximately flat. An alarm clock or a wooden cube might do. If the object to be produced is opaque, provision must be made to allow the light to be reflected AROUND it. Or the light source may be larger than the object.
It will be necessary to have a sliding platform to bring the object forward to the screen. Controlled counterweight, clock-works, thread or other suitable motive power may move this.
Suppose we build an effect from a cambric window shade.
This may be mounted in an opening in a cardboard set piece built to represent a toy shop. The opening is a display window. While the idea is not very sophisticated for present day youngsters, we might build the trick around a hobgoblin toy maker.
The article to be produced may be a doll chair. This can be planted in the tabletop upon which the apparatus is placed.
The screen is pulled down and while showing the shadow of the hand the performer may dip into his supply in the tabletop and place the object on the sliding platform. This is away from the window shade.
By means of a thread, pulled surreptitiously by the magician, or hauled at in secret by a hireling, the doll chair gradually moves towards the window shade. It materializes in more and more concrete form until its outlines are clear.
The magician releases the shade and there it is.
This can be continued for some time with the hobgoblin himself finally appearing on the scene.
We can ring in another principle here for concealing the source of the stock-in-trade. We could mount the apparatus on an open front box. What the spectators would not know about would be a diagonal mirror. I mentioned this before. The inexhaustible box with the rotating panel could help us, too.
As a matter of fact, that inexhaustible box with a sliding device in the floor and a front door made of celluloid might be converted into a new trick. We could lower the light on an extension cord through the top door in the production box after everything was ready. We would have to make some provision to get the objects to be produced out of the secret compartment sideways.
A fine china plate could be used to produce watches. An arm, mounted in the base of the apparatus could bring the watch into position on the sliding device. In this case the performer would reach back of the plate and take the watch, incidentally allowing the arm to drop back into the base again. This principle could be used with The Walking Away From His Shadow screen. Under the red light the object gradually develops. It gains clarity under the white light. It is even clearly visible in the green light. Yet turning on the red light again it vanishes instantly.—Mysterious shadows, collected on sunny days from those who have lost their shadows, and stored in the performer's "shadow box" to be used as he wills! The trick could be presented as a collection of "lost" shadows.
Really, this variation of the shadow trick has possibilities.
Very ancient is the principle of accomplishing a production by means of a hollow shell that conforms to, and fits, the cover from beneath which it is eventually revealed. It has been used so much that it is no longer very deceptive, particularly if the conventional objects it has caused to appear in the past are still used.
Of course, the shell represents some solid object such as a bottle, a ball, a large die, a cone.
The hollow hemispherical ball shell used in the well-known ball vase demonstrates this principle clearly, as does the die shell being revealed beneath a cubical cover.
Whatever the nature of the shell, and what it is intended to represent, almost invariably it fits within and conforms to the interior contour of the cover. Of course, instantly many contradictions of this general rule come to mind when we recall shell bottles being produced beneath cylindrical covers, or even large dice.
A nest of shells comes within this general classification, also. The nests, of course, are simply multiple shells, representing, usually, solid objects. Collectively, when not nested, they represent considerable bulk, a bulk that apparently would be impossible to produce from the container from which they are taken. These nests may be goblets, clocks, bottles, balls, in fact anything that would allow their being made in shell form and nested.
There is still an extensive field from which may be designed shells of objects which have not heretofore been utilized for this purpose.
Secret exchange is an important principle in magic. It constantly appears in all types of effects—color changing balls, escapes, restorations and others. The principle is simple. The objects to be exchanged are identical in appearance. The original is simply replaced by a duplicate under some type of cover—either physical or psychological.
The Coffee and Milk Trick
But there is really no reason why it should not be more generally used for an appearance. The famous Kellar flower growth utilized this principle of exchange. You will recall that two covers were used for each of the two bushes produced. On a servante behind the long drapes on each of two accessory tables were duplicate covers containing the bushes.
During the business of planting the seed and showing how it had sprouted (?) the performer naturally and unobtrusively lowered the empty cover behind the drape and exchanged it for the loaded one.
This can be done with a beer bottle, or a handbag, or a brief case, or a tomato can or a coal scuttle, or a suitcase, if the proper opportunity is provided for getting the empty container out of sight unobtrusively for the exchange.
A coffee can may be shown empty. On the back of your table is a servante with a loaded duplicate. Over a well in the table is a piece of newspaper. Pick up the newspaper from the back using your left hand. The can is in the right. When the paper is sufficiently high to cover the can drop it in the well and secure the loaded one. Lay the paper on your spectator-assistant's outstretched hands. Place the loaded can in the center of the paper and gather the edges of the paper together to form a bag. Give this to the spectator to hold while you do a little "materializing".
The essential behind this principle is to find a GOOD excuse to cover the empty container. The container may be allowed to remain in one location and the covering brought to it. Or the container may naturally be removed out of sight under some stratagem giving a reasonable excuse to do so.
Stop reading for a moment. Think of any kind of a container. Perhaps it may be an empty card case, or a cigarette case. Now find some plausible excuse for moving it out of sight naturally and unsuspiciously. Perhaps you might reach for a handkerchief to polish the cigarette case or to wrap it up in. Have the duplicate loaded case in a clip on your vest, at your back on the right side beneath the coat.
Show the case, Hold it in your right band. Reach to your left hip pocket saying, "Have you a handkerchief?—I mean—" Apparently find none in the left hip pocket and reach to your right hip with the case in that hand. Get the handkerchief—a CLEAN one—from the hip pocket and leave the original case there, taking the loaded duplicate off the clip. Continue: "I mean, a clean one...But I don't want to embarrass you. Perhaps this will do."
Then wrap it up.
You say: "Shakespeare said—I wanted to get that in to make an impression on the scholars here.—Shakespeare said, 'Thoughts are things". I think I can prove that. Suppose you were to hold this cigarette case up in front of you. Naturally, it being a cigarette case, you would think of cigarettes. And since it is empty, it is logical to think of it in terms of its purpose: To hold cigarettes. So, being a practical psychologist, I would assume that you might think of the case being filled with cigarettes. Now remember, since it is cigarettes you want, you must think of cigarettes. The cigarettes being the thought, it is necessary to change that thought into the thing itself, Look...You see. That explains Shakespeare to you. We try to make our performance educational as well as entertaining".
I like that gag. It would make a good maneuver in connection with the card or bill to cigarette, I think I'll try that myself.
But you can do it with any other container if you are careful to have a good logical reason, to cover it long enough to make the exchange.
Reach into the air and apparently grasp an object. Then seem to place it into a container that has held the object itself all the time. This constitutes another method.
It is subtle and direct. But it works. The effectiveness is principally in the way the container is handled. It is handled as if it is empty without actually showing it so. Only a very poor performer need be cautioned not to look into this "empty", container. But if you do not know this, it will help—immeasurably.
You simply reach into the air and grasp a large handful of atmosphere. Remember that it takes up space. So do not close the fist tightly. Hold it as if something were in it. Then just put it into the container.
Use a hat, if you wish. But you may use anything else that might appeal to you or your audiences.
Things like this make some of our complicated inventions look very unnecessary.
This is NOT a method for a bungler—even as you and I. But for the performer with the audacity to try such a bold maneuver, it is effective. There are two acting assignments in this method. One is to enact your role as if you were really taking something from the air. The other is to consider and handle the container as if it were empty. It sounds easy. But it is so simple that it is difficult.
Suppose you were doing a production from a hat or some other object. The stage is being filled from the mysterious source. There are funny-looking flowers, hundreds of silks, queer looking bottles and alarm clocks—the magician is careful to see that they always present a face—on appearance to the audience. According to Hoyle, all of the asinine ingredients to make the production legal are there, things that no sane man—other than a magician—would ever dare to think to pull out of a hat or even a garbage can.
In the middle of it the magician suddenly sees something in the air. He reaches out and grasps it. What he sees is invisible. But you know it is there because as soon as the performer touches it he starts as if encountering an electric current. Looking at the spot, the performer cautiously grasps a hat and tiptoes over to it. In his right hand he takes a fan. Did I say fan? Well, they have that kind even among magicians. At any rate he picks up something and pushes the invisible object off of an invisible shelf. It falls into the hat. You know it falls into the hat because you can see the left hand suddenly pulled down by the weight of it.
The performer looks into the hat and smiles. Then he turns it over and the object, once more material, falls out onto the floor. Perhaps it is a powder puff. But it could be a hat full of bolts and nuts for a change.
<- |!*! |C |I |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6|7 |8 |9 |10 |11 |12 |13 |14 |15 |16 |17 |18 |19 |20 |21 |22 |23 |24 |25 |26 |27 |28 |29 |30 |31 |32 |33 |34 |35 |->
<- |Top |Showmanship For Magicians |Trick Brain|Magic By Misdirection |Mail |->
