Those of you who are regular readers know that I often review magic products. Based on reader response, something that I'm trying out this year is to demonstrate magic tricks that I've reviewed via video.
The first product to gain this treatment is "Hover," a close-up suspension effect with a deck of cards. You can watch my video here and read my review here.
When demonstrating a product via video, I intend to accomplish several objectives: 1) providing an idea of what the final effect looks like, 2) demonstrating performance conditions and 3) augmenting my written reviews with visuals. I hope that you find my videos helpful. Look for more of these in the future. And of course, I always welcome your comments, feedback and questions.
After working "Hover" up for video and gaining some insights, would I present this in my restaurant situations? Probably not. I'd pretty much need a table cloth on a table to provide the proper surface for this one. Depending on the restaurant, the table surfaces vary and even then, with a table cloth, I'd have to experiment first. While the effect looks great on video, there are considerable angle problems from underneath and the sides and back. Spectators just can't help wanting to look for themselves - it's just curiosity. For these reasons, I find "Hover" impractical for most real-world work.
Click here to watch the video.
More Reading
Learn How to Present the "Count" Card Magic Trick
Review of Hover
Humbug by Angleo Carbone
Comments
Excellent point about practicality. Often, a trick that looks great on paper or even in a video is just not practical in real-world performing conditions. Not only may angles be bad, but spectators may not be able to resist grabbing at the props. It’s a pity, but that’s the real world!