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Totally Mental wrote:I may also be able to help if needed having designed and built a few things myself.

You should be aware though - sometimes the costs of building and refining prototypes can get pretty high!

This idea, while being genuinely innovative, is, at least for me, something that if it were to be implemented, would be seriously high tech. Development costs and the time involved would be prohibitive for a small workshop like mine. I like it, however. I just can't see how to make it happen. I believe another workshop said the same, but it was worth a go. I still think there's a less high-tech way of doing it, but it'd diminish the WOW factor. In contrast, some of the electronic ideas I get sent, about two a week, are complete flights of fancy. Seriously. Sometimes they're based tiny, invisible James Bond tech that simply doesn't exist, but mostly it's just a pipe dream consisting of: "You come up with something impossible that costs peanuts to make by Indonesian children and we all get rich!" However, I never disclose these ideas. Ever.

I recently stumbled over how to recreate someone else's gadget in a very simple form. When I found out, I got special permission from the original creator, the designer he used, and the money men who paid for it to describe my own version. I even re-wrote a chapter of a book in case they refused me permission.

So there. I do not steal. I don't need to. I have too many of my own ideas. Others steal, I have the proof, but I am not a "slug". Freemasons trust me, for crying out loud!

Just something to think about

who needs proof when you've got the internet to hide behind?!

IAIN wrote:who needs proof when you've got the internet to hide behind?!

Indeed. Continuous assertion is truth, right?

kolm wrote:

Craig Browning wrote:Do be careful and get a disclosure agreement BEFORE you share anything with anyone. Believe it or not our industry is filled with some rather underhanded slugs that think nothing of taking an effect from someone that may not have the know how or resources to make and produce it as their own.

Maybe I'm missing something, but if they don't have the know how or resources to produce it themselves, what's the point in them stealing it?

There's a couple of gimmicks used in mentalism for cuing folks that come to mind.

What are you trying to suggest?

I'm talking about someone trusting a person with the knowledge and resources to make said item taking the idea and running with it, leaving the thinker (the person that came up with the idea) in the dust. It happens quite frequently in our world.

As to the second question, I'm not naming names but a young person I used to work with had an idea and even knew the technology to use, etc. but hadn't the resources. He entrusted a "friend" who in turn produced the device as his own brain-child, completely cutting the lad in question, out of the process or development history let alone any kind of royalty payment due him for the intellectual side of contribution. The thief ends up making thousands of dollars off the idea while the innovator is left broke.

This happens with big names as well. Ken Whitaker and I were working with a very famous Stage Illusionist on a Helicopter production. Long story short said celebrity was recording our conversations and sharing them with his regular builder so the prop could be built and credited entirely to him (the celeb) as the developer when that was very far from the truth.

I could list other scenarios, a few of which involve some rather popular grand illusions and well known personalities but that wouldn't prove beneficial to the questioner. My only interest was warning them about approaching anyone with a concept and making certain they protect themselves up front.