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I would like to get into levitating objects but am in two minds - should i just stick with ordinary Invis thread or go 4 the spider pen? If i were to go for ordinary IT should I get the elasticated stuff or not?

On another note the 'Vanishing Budweiser Bottle by Norm Neilsen' seen here:

http://www.cards4magic.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh ... 2741#a2741

uses the brown paper bag-correct? If so Im very concerned about the bottle. DOes anyone have it? Does it look 100% realistic?

Cheers,

Alex

you should probably just see what you want to levitate, and which ones seem good for it. An ITR can remain hidden throughout a performance, so that might be the way to go. Regular IT is good, but it doesn't come back to you, and so you have the IT dangling for anyone to see. Spider pen, Ive heard some bad things about it. The Kevlar Pen Reel has gotten much better reviews that Ive seen. It is fairly expensive though, but apparently its a long length of thread that never breaks, so sounds good to me.

http://www.thisismagic.com/html/kevlar_pen_reel.html
theres a link for it if youre in the US

in the UK
http://www.magicshop.co.uk/kevlar-reel- ... -1472.html



as for the disappearing bottle, it seems rather stupid to put a bottle in a paper bag before you disappear it, it basically screams "Ive got a gimmicked bottle/bag!"


just my four cents

Save your £35, or spend it on a couple of bricks of bicycles, because I guarantee that bottle will be gathering dust in your cupboard within a month!

ultimatecreate wrote:On another note the 'Vanishing Budweiser Bottle by Norm Neilsen' seen here:

http://www.cards4magic.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh ... 2741#a2741

uses the brown paper bag-correct? If so Im very concerned about the bottle. DOes anyone have it? Does it look 100% realistic?

Cheers,

Alex

Hello Alex, the link didn't work, but I have the Neilson Coke bottle (full) and it does look realistic, particularly if you are using it on stage which is where I perform it.
Obviously you need to get used to handling it so it doesn't give anything away, but it has got a good response and I use it in my comedy act as a gag routine.

There is a book out with different routines for the Neilson bottles. I don't have it, but it's apparently good.

As well as the vanish you can do productions if you wish as they compress pretty well, for instance, if you had quite a few of them (very expensive I know!) you could do a Mary Poppins style routine where you pull all of these bottles from a small bag and place them on a table.

I'm happy with mine and nobody has seemed to think it's anything other than a normal Coke bottle.

hhhmmmmm - the bottle does look very tempting, but i think ill steer clear for now. I am after all a close-up only magi and have enough gimmicks collecting dust to be working on.

thanks for your input HenryHoudini. The things I wish to levitate would be playing cards, bills, rings etc.

Any suggestions people?

many thanks,

Alex

The vanishing bottles look very realistic even in a close-up situation, but think of an appropriate time to use it?
When would you come across a tomato ketchup bottle?, and its rare that you will still get a glass coke bottle in the pub.

Also think of the effect it produces, you pick up a bottle and crush it in a paper bag, then what?

To be quite honest its a bit of a gag effect, and £35 is expensive for a gag that lasts for around 10 seconds.

You can do a good bottle change as detailed in David Acer's 'Random Acts of Magic' and I stated previously, there is a book of ideas and routines for Neilson bottles.
Sometimes I cover my hand with a silk and lift it to show a bottle appear.
Obviously this thing is fine for stage work and has got me a good response, but I have never tried it at close quarters and the bottles are not examinable by specs.

I would just stick to the invisible string at first as there are many tricks that can be performed with it.

ultimatecreate wrote:thanks for your input HenryHoudini. The things I wish to levitate would be playing cards, bills, rings etc.

Any suggestions people?

many thanks,

Alex

Just normal (edit - as in non-elastic, not sewing) thread will work fine for this, I personally find it much easier to do this kind of stuff without using a reel (I tend to break them - A lot)

WHO'S AFRAID OF IT? By Jon LeClair Will show you how to do this.

buy hummingbird if you want to float cards

not a great fan of that effect really.

sdubin10 wrote:buy hummingbird if you want to float cards

What a ridiculous suggestion, to be completely honest.

Hummingbird is by far the worst, most obvious card float. Gimmicky, and wrong.

There's a ton of decent, subtle ways to do this. I'd rather not mention them in public, but I'd be happy to recommend some via PM.

Absolutely agree with you 100% Siege that was my first reaction after reading that recommendation of Hummingbird, that is by far IMHO one of the worst and fiddely floats on the market.

sdubin10 wrote:buy hummingbird if you want to float cards

Poor old sdubin10. Shot down in a blaze of...well...just a blaze really.