electronic mentalism – MagicShow.Tips

Buying a Mentalism Show

I was chatting with a hypnotist friend of mine, who is also a good magician about the new wave of mentalists. These are people who see mentalism as way to “fame” or at least gigs. Many of them are from non-magic styles of performance (like burlesque, or actors) that think they can simply buy some props and do a mentalism show. The sad thing is that they pretty much can and will do fine…until something goes wrong. Their show is literally controlled by a computer chip

I’ve worked with a many of these acts and what they lack is that they’re not passionate about magic or mentalism. They’re not passionate about magic/mentalism, they just know the prop they bought. When that electronic prop doesn’t work, they’re screwed. They don’t have a back up plan.

Someone who loves magic/mentalism knows four different ways to get out of an electronic trick when the gimmick fails or has planned for failure with back up methods.

A good example of this is when I used to do the lottery prediction using Ceseral CUPP. My prediction was two phase, the first was a decent trick and the kicker was the lottery ticket. The reason it was two phase was that when doing the trick if the lottery ticket didn’t print or was a misprint, I simply stopped after the first phase. No one knew the lottery ticket was going to happen, so if I didn’t do that part, it felt like the trick was complete. The first phase of the trick was bullet proof, and really couldn’t fail.

This is where being a student of whatever art you’re doing makes a huge difference! Put the time in!

-Louie

Color Match!

Currently I’m on the first half of a twelve day contract in Fresno, CA. I used to do Promystic’s Color Match in my show a while ago and I’m recently cycling it back into the show. At the beginning of the run I had one of the pens start to do strange things, so I ordered a replacement part for it…but that doesn’t help me for the rest of my current contract.

Luckily, Hocus Pocus is only 5 minutes from where I’m performing, so a quick trip there and I picked up one of Murphy’s Magic’s Anverdi Color Match sets.

I honestly don’t think that the Color Match that Muprhy’s Magic sells is Anverdi’s…especially when at the beginning of the video they show how it’s different. It’s Murphy’s way of justifying something that may be an ethical dilemma.

I do like how the Murphy’s Magic set has an auto cycle off for the signals. That’s handy in 91% of instances, however in that remaining 9% it makes it harder on you as the performer. Yes, they do have a work around, but it’s not really practical for me. Method wise, I guess it’s solid, I’ve only practiced it, because somehow my Promystic gimmick that was acting funky, magically started work fine once I bought the Murphy’s Magic set.

While a few bucks more, I still prefer the Promystic Color Match set, I think it more solidly built. I also like that I can easily have two thumpers operate at the same time, where I don’t recall them mentioning that using two was possible with the Murphy’s Magic set.

I think I’m going to keep using my Promystic set as long as I can, as I prefer how it works. It could just be me being old and stuck in my ways…

-Louie

Foolproof Isn’t Always…

One of the things that drives me nuts are people who use electronic mentalism effects and aren’t prepared for what happens when they don’t work. I was recently at a trade show and there was someone else using a trick on the same frequency as me. I quickly realized that and went into my other … Continue reading “Foolproof Isn’t Always…”

One of the things that drives me nuts are people who use electronic mentalism effects and aren’t prepared for what happens when they don’t work. I was recently at a trade show and there was someone else using a trick on the same frequency as me. I quickly realized that and went into my other method of doing the trick that didn’t rely on the electronic device.

I learned that the other person didn’t realize it and they were frequently unable to “read minds” as they were getting my signal. This is the problem with these fool proof type tricks, they are easy to do amazing things…until they aren’t.

When I realized someone else was on the same frequency as me, I turned off my receiver, but still used the prop as it’s part of my tradeshow set. Unfortunately my prop was still sending out a signal. Now the ethical question is should one of us have stopped using the trick? In my opinion the answer is no, we both are entitled to do the trick.

They never came to me to ask me to turn it off, and honestly I probably wouldn’t have turned it off as I’m equally as entitled to use it as they are. It’s a learning lesson, what to do when more than one person is using your frequency. One that I’ve anticipated, and spent time figuring out how to deal with. If you are performing in any setting where there is more than just you performing, you need to be aware of this and have a backup plan.