talkmagic.co.uk

Hey guys.

I know this has been posted before as I searched beforehand, although I did not want to resurrect as such. I remember as a young child, asking my mum all year for E's Street Magic for Beginners DVD at 13 years old. The advertising looked amazing. Levitation (King Rising was in the trailer, but only initially taught balducci in the DVD).

I got it, eventually shipped to the UK and was quickly disappointed due to the fact, they were tricks that you could find in books that I have already read about previously. The advertising of the DVD made it look so amazing.

But not only that, tutorials such as Revolution Coin Vanish, Kaos, Stigmata, they are all tricks that are generally revealed previously or are overpriced for what they are worth.

I promise, I'm not starting a flaming war or such, just hoping someone shares the same thought really or even notices it. Old tricks are palmed as new, Brad is completely overrated and with the like of Theory 11 - It seems a big marketing campaign to squeeze money from willing magicians and supplying poor material.

Don't get me wrong, for beginners I'm sure it would have been a great book. But showing material that is not going to be taught and such is quite irritating.

Again apologises, I just want everyone's input on this really

It happens all the time, new super effects just turn out to be a rehash of something from a hundred year old book. Not always but far too often. I always say that you're far better buying a few classic books than over priced and over hyped DVDs

Read this for some proper ellusionist bashing.

http://antinomymagic.com/swiss.htm

Personally I am for and against ellusionist - yes in the past I have been sucked into their marketing,
a book about the black tiger deck,
and a deck of printed gaff cards to go with it.

But I've also got some things I was happy with,
Shapeshifter DVD
Kaos DVD

Maybe I could have learnt those elsewhere, but I still enjoyed them and learnt from them.

I think the thing to remember is that they are advertising to a certain market (young people) and that gritty, urban approach appeals to them.

The main negative I see is also a negative of most magic dealers - they market magic as self-working, easy to do, pick it up and fool your friends immediately - they are saying that magic can be learnt quickly, played with for a few months or a few years, and then when the phase passes, you can quit.

For me magic is a passion, and I think about magic every day. I hope that some good comes out of ellusionst, and that some of the people who find magic through there, move on to other sources, studying other styles, studying the classics of magic, going back to the places that ellusionist should be referencing.

Jing wrote:I hope that some good comes out of ellusionst, and that some of the people who find magic through there, move on to other sources, studying other styles, studying the classics of magic, going back to the places that ellusionist should be referencing.

Exactly. I agree. Most people know a trick or two for entertainment. But Shapeshifter - I remember seeing the move performed by Marvin Berglas in 2000 way before E released it?

But seriously, you put it well there pal. I agree. Magic is a passion, and whom takes that passion it means a lot too. Like myself and the rest of the board. It's just a shame they exploit and market it.

I've never bought anything from elluisionist and having seen videos like this, probably never will.

http://youtu.be/rLdyo5buaJ8

Shouldn't be all that surprised that you saw the Shapeshifter performed long before E released the DVD teaching it. Marc DeSouza released his book with it in years before E was an itch in Brad Christian's underwear.

Ellusionist became quite notorious a few years ago for taking old effects from standard books, donning a bit of guyliner, and selling them to kids for a lot of money on the back of "awesome" videos.

Jobasha wrote:I've never bought anything from elluisionist and having seen videos like this, probably never will.

http://youtu.be/rLdyo5buaJ8

I feel a little bit like a pensioner who's just been told about Twitter. That video linked to loads of pre-pubesent voiced people opening packages from Ellusionist. Just opening boxes. Is that entertainment now?

I've heard of Ellusionist but know very little of them. Are they the magicstore of choice for a lot of the Justin Bieber generation?

I know it's been mentioned on here countless times but why spend so much money of bits of shiny? £20 buys you 10 packs of Bicycles. Why buy black faced decks? Not are they only more expensive but you also have to buy the eye-liner to match!

The only things I have ever bought that are by Ellusionist (apart from a few fancy decks) are their red gaff deck and the Ultragaff set. I just like odd looking gaff cards, ok?

The Shapeshifter move is in, as previously mentioned, Marc De Souza's book and is also taught very clearly in Random Acts Of Magic, a great book by David Acer with some top drawer material in it. That book contains tons of less-well-known but incredibly useful sleights and some well-thought out routines and represents far better value for money than a DVD teaching just that move. On the subject of David Acer and the Shapeshifter move, there is a great effect on his Open Traveller DVD called Shadeshifter where the back of a signed selection changes colour visually (and the card can be kept). Briliiant stuff.

In all fairness, this repackaging goes on all the time in non-magic areas. E have spotted a marketing opportunity where there seems to be money available so they pitch things which appeal to that market and get the orders in return. Let's be clear, nobody is forced into buying from E so if people choose to believe the hype and part with their cash then that's all there is to it - E are doing nothing illegal. OK, I have problems with the concept of taking age old stuff from free on line books and them up for sale to the yoofpube generation but that's just my personal opinion, others may disagree.

Mandrake wrote:In all fairness, this repackaging goes on all the time in non-magic areas. E have spotted a marketing opportunity where there seems to be money available so they pitch things which appeal to that market and get the orders in return. Let's be clear, nobody is forced into buying from E so if people choose to believe the hype and part with their cash then that's all there is to it - E are doing nothing illegal. OK, I have problems with the concept of taking age old stuff from free on line books and them up for sale to the yoofpube generation but that's just my personal opinion, others may disagree.

I agree with this, it happens in films, music and ALL the time in comedy ... Lee Evans in a recent tour did a drum set set, ripped RIGHT OFF a 20 year old Rowan Atkinson set from the late 80's.

Dan

Mandrake wrote:In all fairness, this repackaging goes on all the time in non-magic areas. E have spotted a marketing opportunity where there seems to be money available so they pitch things which appeal to that market and get the orders in return. Let's be clear, nobody is forced into buying from E so if people choose to believe the hype and part with their cash then that's all there is to it - E are doing nothing illegal. OK, I have problems with the concept of taking age old stuff from free on line books and them up for sale to the yoofpube generation but that's just my personal opinion, others may disagree.

True, and I get you, but to be frank, we're talking about marketing to a deliberately young market. It think kids are protected in other areas of advertising law because when we're young, we really ARE impressionable. We're the evidence for that. Think about it. We all have things we REALLY wanted for Christmas based on what it looked like on the TV adverts, but on the day it turned out to be utter pants. I wanted an Airfix Flightdeck. It was BRILLIANT!!!! I when saw it on that James May thingy about toys a while ago, though, what he said was exactly what I thought when I got the box open.

Mandrake wrote:Let's be clear, nobody is forced into buying from E so if people choose to believe the hype and part with their cash then that's all there is to it - E are doing nothing illegal.

But they did perform the King Rising Levitation in the Street Magic DVD advert, with the caption "Learn to Levitate" underneath as it was performed. The levitation was one of my main interests when buying it, but was gutted when the balducci was revealed. Surely that was misguided advertising? Would that be unlawful?

25 years ago Harry Anderson did a wonderful article in Genii about this very thing, even breaking down terms like "Classic" -- meaning that it is an effect that's been done to death for the past 100 or more years and so forth. . .

Fact is ADVERTISERS as a whole LIE! It's their job to make you fall in love with a particular thing. With magic it's almost always an ego pitch; luring the sucker to see how awesome this new piece will make them appear. Toss that in with the horrid video B.S. that's become so popular with E, T-11, Penguin and the other "kiddie sites" (as most call them) and you have a myriad of small monsters running amuck, preying on the lesser educated.

Just this morning I found an eMail ad for a "New" Chair Test Challenge and as I read through the ad two or three times I shook my head with amazement; this awesome "new" idea that was getting some strong kudos was almost exactly the same as Rick Maue's Chair routine that was released a few years ago and yes, it's an awesome piece of work when it comes to getting audience reaction.

Even those that have been around the block a few times get caught up on the ads and flash. I've coughed up some serious cash only to end up with yet another plastic thumb or similar body-part that I already have an abundance of. . . I just wasn't reading the ad copy right and/or the creator of said ads deliberately obfuscated things so that the learned couldn't figure things out. This latter matter is actually a bit of deception that's only recently become part of the spiel, the old magic merchants would at least feed you enough information to ward off the experienced and prevent us from wasting our cash or at least know what we were getting into ahead of time, not so these days. Toss in the stupidity of video flash, horrid music and short-cuts on the edits and you find yourself a bit confused as to what the effect actually is.

One of the newer companies that fit this mess actually posts the how to side of things on video editing and production forums. . . the same footage you are being asked to pay $50.00 or whatever for, is being given away on another "non-magic" sight. Talk about a reason to see red. . .

Bottom line is, we will never change the way magic dealers and the advertising industry does what they do. We can only educate ourselves and learn to question what's being marketed. Hopefully the parties involve will be honest enough to not insult your intelligence and tell you when something is based on something, such as pencil reading rather than boldly lie to you by saying that there is no relationship whatsoever.

Buyer Beware is the rule!

Jobasha wrote:I've never bought anything from elluisionist and having seen videos like this, probably never will.

http://youtu.be/rLdyo5buaJ8

I don't understand - isn't he supposed to show the box is empty before he produces all that stuff from it?


Seriously, when I joined this Forum I was quite shocked at the amount of buying from Magic Dealers that occurs. When I was a child there were no Magic Dealers anywhere in my part of the country so I never went in any, all my magic I made myself from the instructions in books. It is always far more satisfying than buying an overpriced tacky looking object from a magic dealer. And the benefit nowadays is that my show doesn't look like a clone of everyone else's.