Magicians love to take short cuts and be lazy. Here’s an example, I’m doing a trick where loose rubber bands turn into a rubber band ball. The easy way would simply be to do a shuttle pass during a hand to hand transfer. However I had some conditions that I wanted for the trick:
1: The change had to feel like it was a visual change
2: I needed to end with my hands empty
3: The trick needed to be able to happen at anytime in my show
4: The ball had to be able to bounce
The first and second conditions made something simple like a shuttle pass not the solution for me.
Ending clean made things a bit more complicated. An early idea was to use a gimmicked rubber band ball that was similar to a Silk to Ball Gimmick. However making one that could bounce and not look strange is something I have yet to figure out.
Here’s what I ended up coming up with:
What I ended up doing from a “method” standpoint was a lot more complicated than a shuttle pass, but I think it fulfilled my artistic vision better than a shuttle pass would have.
P.S. The method for this will be in an upcoming issue of Vanish Magazine