The Box by Mark Southworth

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The Box by Mark Southworth

Postby saavanstreet » Feb 10th, '14, 18:16



Hey TM people!

Does anyone have The Box by Mark Southworth that they could post a little review on?
This thing looks like a pure miracle!

Saavan :)

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Re: The Box by Mark Southworth

Postby Rufio » Feb 14th, '14, 21:22

It is one of the better card to impossible location plots, and I have tried many. What appeals to me is the visual vanish of the folded card, as even performing this in front of the mirror it does fool you into believing that the card is tipped into your hand, only for you to reveal that it is the signed card.

Regrettably I sold it very recently at a loss. I think it is ingenious, as the gimmick itself is VERY clever, and instead of those "why didn't I think of that?" moments, you will have the other view of simply having much respect for this creation. Having said this, whilst it doesn't have the same visual impact in that you don't see the card (ostensibly) get tossed into your hand, I still use Chris Congreave's The Lighter, which seems to have better reactions.

One reason for this may be the fact that despite The Box looking like an innocent prop, The Lighter seems more organic, that everyone will identify with. Flowing from this, in the same way we magicians have Magician's Guilt, I think we can conversely over think an effect, and look at it from a magician's point of view, in which, because something has a great vanish, and an invisible switch, we assume the lay public will also appreciate these elements and view it as a superior effect. On a similar point, Darwin Ortiz in Strong Magic discusses how creating seemingly more impossible conditions for the effect premise to work heightens the reaction, and in this sense, The Box has advantages over The Lighter, in that it creates a very visual and seemingly fair moment where the spectator will tell themselves they saw you simply tip the card in The Box into your palm, with The Box then being empty. However, the simplicity of The Lighter as a prop that an audience can identify with is what sells its impact.

Overall, I loved The Box, and only sold it to fund an expensive guitar pedal addiction I currently have. As an effect, it is really strong. In keeping with Ortiz' point of the more impossible the conditions the greater the impact, adding Peter Nardi's Extractor into the mix not only gives you all the time to do what you need to do with the card, but really sells the impossibility of a signed card being put into a pack of cards, and for that to appear into The Box. You could also adopt presentation elements of explaining how you sometimes mess up magic tricks, and that this Box is just there in case of such emergencies... You could then deliberately fail to guess the identity of their chosen cards (as you could with The Extractor) and explain that luckily you have.... etc you know the rest.

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Re: The Box by Mark Southworth

Postby saavanstreet » Feb 16th, '14, 23:44

Thank you very much Rufio!!! Almost 4 years ago I was using cell by David Stone, but the poor quality of the gimmick and upgrade onto smartphones made it impossible to perform it only a few months after it was purchased! However this looks much better in addition to that it can be any folded object! How big is the Box compared to e.d a deck of cards?

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