talkmagic.co.uk

This is my semi self invented spongeball routine.

I got most of this stuff from the spongeball toolbox. I just now got around to filming it.

Tell me what you think, (I do know where the flash is)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq9v8hxYN5o

sorry for the double post. over 80 views of the thread and almost 50 views of the video and no one has anything to say about it?

How could I change my patter, routine, or method to make it stronger? Did you like my final load? should I change it?

Do you love it? do you hate it?

I like it

I am new like you and have been working on my sponge balls and I really like what you did

You need to cut out one and a half to two minutes of this presentation. What you have is alright, but it is an overkill.

Sometimes, you have to kill your children.

I know you don't want to, but if you want a hard hitting, powerful display of magic, then what you have goes way too far.

Keep the stuff that you are really proud of, drop the rest. Sometimes, you have to kill your children.

You will be a good magician once you realize that the most powerful of magic is simple and quick. That's not to say that you shouldn't routine you material or that you should move fast when presenting magic, but you have to know when enough is enough.

You are trying to put too much into this presentation. That's not a bad thing when you are first getting started, but as you progress and evolve, you will begin to realize that sometimes you must kill your children. If you have a desire to honestly amaze your audience to the point where they want to see more, then you must kill your children.

Take that routine that you have, get rid of at least one and one half minutes, then repost it. I'll have another look. Right now, it goes on way too long.

Oftentimes, with magic, less is more.

Mike.

Personally I found the initial half of the video a bit more entertaining.

Aso, when you do the counting of 1-10, shouldn't it flow a bit more instead of stopping after every 2? Might be a personal choice, dunno.

Just my thoughts.

FLOW comes with rehearsal & performance. This is a fairly newly created routine. What ArcticBanana is asking for has been answered well by Mike Jay.
Magicians very often go on too long with a routine. Eddie Joseph in one of his Cups & Balls books gives a routine 18 minutes long. by then the audience will have forgotten even how many cups are on the table.

AB needs to do one of two things. Either split the routine into 2 and thus have 2 routines OR scrap most of it, following Mike's suggestions of simply retaining what AB feels goes over best.
Laurence Oliver used to begin his classical roles with doing too much. When he played Shylock he first appeared in rehearsal with a huge rubber nose.Later it was made smaller, then smaller. Finally it disappeared altogether & you saw a period Jewish face when he acted the role.
Magicians do need to learn the Art of Cutting. START with lots then whittle down & down (in rehearsal and self inquests AFTER performances) till you arrive at a near ideal..the Truth.

I would add slower movements of the hands. Keep the right hand still than the working left hand. Otherwise attention is drawn to it, sometimes when you don't want that. Occasionally rest the right hand on the table or against the body. Check out variation of pace in the routine.
And change the colour of the sponges. I tend to use red only, with a few exceptions.
Pat Page (one of the UK's leading teachers of Magic) seems to use( when I've watched his work) yellow for better visibility.

185 of you have viewed this post.
COME ON guys here is a young magician who has worked out a routine, & simply wants advice & tips on how he can improve both the routine & his handling of it.

Allen Tipton

Thank you for the superlative addendum, Mr. Tipton. Exactly what I was getting at, but I'm a bit more cryptic that you.

And, most importantly, you wrote:COME ON guys here is a young magician who has worked out a routine, & simply wants advice & tips on how he can improve both the routine & his handling of it.

Well said, sir.

Mike.

I would prefer to see each ball produced magically rather than simply getting them out of your pocket (eg. purseframe).

Remove the 10 count completely

Maybe use squares instead of balls as half the time you seem to be chasing the balls around the table

Either leave the climax with 1 lime or if you want a double climax produce 2 more limes which makes more logical sense.

Where are you going to perform this ? It needs a lot of table space currently which won't work for the majority of working gigs (ie. table hopping where the table is already full or mix & mingle where there aren't any tables)

Thanks for all the responses. I do see that it is much too long. I have started asking people who I perform it to to tell me what they just saw. The parts that they remember are the parts that I keep.

I am reworking it and trying out different things, so far I have it so that I do the three balls into the bowl. then the two in the hand one in the pocket. then vanish all three and have them reappear under the bowl as key limes then use them for my cups and balls routine.

Im thinking about picking up some mini spongeballs that I can turn them into first, so that it will make more sense when they turn into key limes.

Thanks for the advice on magically producing them. How would you recommend doing this with the second and third balls? should I just steal them from my pocket when I flip the bowl each time? Im open to ideas.

I actually started referring to them as my "trained limes," maybe I could switch to yellow and call them my "trained lemons."

Don't really have any working gigs as of now. I primarily do magic before classes (where I have no table at all) or after dinner to family and friends.

I put the pauses in the ten count because I felt like it gave the impression that I was going slower, but still let me move quickly between the important steps.

sorry if I missed any questions or comments, point them out to me and I will respond to them.

Thanks to Mr. Tipton and Mr. Jay for the extensive responses, and thanks to everyone for responding at all. Much appreciated.

nice

I would agree with some of the other comments that the routine is a little long. Some very nice vanishes in my opinion though and good use of the pen to 'occupy' the right hand at the appropriate moments. I would suggest that you need to relax the right arm a little (a problem I also have!) because the tension can look a little unnatural when you are not holding the pen. Hope this helps.

cut the three ball repeats out and this is brill

nice handling - really enjoyed it