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Hi,
Has anybody had any experience with this yet? Seems a bit obvious but I am concerned the thing is too fragile and once dropped, that's it. I have been asked to do a prom, tables first then stage after so i am looking for a few more close ups. This may seem ideal.
I don't as a rule do close up anymore so I need to look at a couple of effects to enhance the set. I can't say that I have worked with 120 16 year old's before but the few 16 year olds I have worked with were pretty much like adults and the IT always seemed to please. Any other suggestions also welcome. I don't really do card tricks though.

Thanks

I don't think you should bother with it.
It looks, from the photographs, as if it it based on a very old idea.
I do not know from first hand knowlede but from the photos published of it.
Originally a TT or a small plastic tube, was used with a sucker.

Do not think you can float the Bulb anywhere but behind your clasped fingers.

********IN HINDSIGHT: The video I saw was NOT the Robert Vitelli' version but a dealer who using a plastic full size bulb which only floated behind his clasped hands.
I re checked my research File and found I| had typed in --Floating Light Bulb--missing out Robert Vitelli.!!! Oops--sorry guys. new spectacles--serously--last week & before anyone says-'You should have gone to Specsavers'--I did.

Neither the Bulb above or the Robert Vitelli are- the legendary stage Floating Light Bulb. That needs experience and a difficult set up.

Pity you could not see my son when (from Portugal) last night, on video call--he demmed his newly created rig for the effect.
Although designed for the stage--he showed me the moves in his living room.
The Bulb floated away from him, up in the air and down as normal THEN he can & did-- float it away from him down to the audience (a move he will not use as it belongs to the Blackstone family though his handling is very different as the bulb moves away with NO movement from him and WAITS IN THE AUDIENCE till he walks down off stage to it!!
In the audience he can let someone hold the Bulb--let it go and it will !!! float back to the stage while he is in the audience & await his arrival on stage.
Or it will float in front of him as he returns to the stage or follow behind him as he goes there. Also he can walk all round the bulb, make it float down behnd him, step over it etc.
I could not believe that he had worked out such a clever method.
I am very proud of him.
If as he hopes after leaving Lisbon University, he becomes a professional magician--he will undoubtedly feature this incredible effect.
Now, between us we have to work out the actual routine.

For you--if you want a float for Close Up why not look at the small lit ball--Lite Flite.?

Allen Tipton

you know, I would have no problems with doing the over the audience float.
Its originaly a floating ball move, ( Either Thurstons, or Okito) Which Blackstone Snr adapted to suit the bulb.

Do it at the next King of Keighley Dale!!!


Allen, your sons effect sounds superb. I really hope we get to see this performed.

The thing is Dale, I am trying to bring MIke up in Magic properly.
No stealing or blatant copying of another magician's original work.
If a magician he sees, perform something original & makes him want to present that effect--he will ask for permission to do so.
If the answer is no--then no it is.
I am most happy to say he does have Rules, Principles and a Code of Honour in his life that he developed himself.

Re the Floating Ball--perhaps the effect I have studied and performed more than any other effect-- I have a well known magician on video, from TV, presenting it and copying the Fin Jon routine & method, set up & moves, step by step.
Now if he had asked FJ for permission that would be OK but I bet he didn't

Mike has all my Floating Ball Files ( collected over the 30 odd years of performing it) plus my original model of the Ball (made by my wife) and the complete rig with a DVD I made showing him all the Ins & outs, the routine etc. He says he will not perform it as Dad did--use the system I have given him but in his own way.

And by the way. Thurston , did not float the Ball over the audience but he floated the Ball ,in front of himself, down to the front aisle then turned top face the stage & it floated back to the stage then up and then down, into the Spirit Cabinet from where it had first appeared from. Then it disappeared.

Okito never ever left the stage or floated the Ball anywhere but on the stage.
I have both their routines and moves --well Mike has them now.

And sorry Dale--Blackstone Senior did not invent the over the audience float. It was thought up by Harry Blackstone--without looking up the 60/70 items I have on the FLB--I can't remember when in the 70's.
Via a USA friend, who is a close friend of HB's stage manager--I was told HB when rehearsing the FLB in a small church , hall, tripped over a stage brace and the Bulb went out into the 'auditorium' thus prompting the idea of floating it over the audience. Again--without going through all those files--I can't remember whether it was 1975 in Chicago or 1978 when HB first performed it.

Best wishes
Allen Tipton

Thanks for the replies. I will take a look at the small lit ball, Lite Flite and see so thank you Allen. I have found a bit more info on the bulb and it is still tempting. The actual Bulb is made from polycarbonate so should be tough enough to hold out if dropped. I am not expecting miracles with this and from what I can see, I won't be getting any, it just has to be a bit showy so the ball lite flite may well be the answer in the end.

Regards

There is also a neat little trick by Jay Scott Berry, that might interest you.

I did have it--gave it to a friend.
It is called--'Candleyte'
You can also use the small gimmick to 'make a flame float along the bill'.

But:

The magician produced or borrows a bill
He show a small birthday cake candle.
Lights it
Hold the bill in both hands
and
The lit candle floats to and fro behind it.

Bill and candle given out for examination IF YOU REALLY must! ugh!

Allen Tipton

Thanks Allen, I will check this out as soon as I can find it.

Regards

Allen Tipton wrote:I don't think you should bother with it.
It looks, from the photographs, as if it it based on a very old idea.
I do not know from first hand knowlede but from the photos published of it.
Originally a TT or a small plastic tube, was used with a sucker.

Do not think you can float the Bulb anywhere but behind your clasped fingers.

On the demo video it does show it floating without cover. Judging by the small size of the bulb, it looks like IT to me?

YES spooney--you are RIGHT,

The video I saw--entitled Floating Light Bulb WAS NOT Robert Vitelli's.

And I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN--especially as I have the RV version saved on my PC from when it first came out!!!

And I believe you are right on the IT as well. From the movements it MIGHT even be based PARTLY on the Steve Frearson set up.

So jomarcham--you might well look at it and it possibly could break if dropped. You need real experience with IT to handle it.
And if you do try it--or any other IT effect FOLLOW what I used to say in my IT lecture ('Now You See It--Now You Don't'--) LEARN the effect--any IT effect with ordinary 'stuff' FIRST. This you need till you have confidence in the IT. Too many magicians use IT straight off and wonder why they fail.

Allen Tipton

Thanks Allen. I was aware that it was IT and yes I have experience in IT, often performing the floating rose amongst other IT routines.I have also had the usual mishaps with it like everyone else. I believe there is a credit for the Frearson hook up for the routine. I may well purchase it next week if I can find one in stock somewhere.
Thanks again.

I have the floating lit up ball, which I picked up in Vegas a few years ago. In the 1980s, I used to do a similar effect with a test tube and small silver bar. It was nice because the test tube had a cork on top and the little bar would move around in the tube, nudge the cork off, float, and then I used a bracelet as the 'hoop' one sees in the stage illusions. Beautiful and deceptive. The Vitelli looks the same to me...

I also had the pleasure of seeing Harry Blackstone do the Floating Lightbulb with the float across the audience in 1983 at the Hershey Theatre in Pennsylvania. Fantastic!

Allen your history is great, thanks!

Dr Todd

Ah Dr. Todd, the silver bar would be Steve Dusheck's 'Wunderbar'.
Still a great floating effect & like the Floating Dancing Cork (Ralf Wichmann) can be done 'under their noses'.

There was a rip off of Wunderbar--some dealer in India I believe.

Allen Tipton

Allen Tipton wrote:Ah Dr. Todd, the silver bar would be Steve Dusheck's 'Wunderbar'.
Still a great floating effect & like the Floating Dancing Cork (Ralf Wichmann) can be done 'under their noses'.

There was a rip off of Wunderbar--some dealer in India I believe.

Allen Tipton

That's the one! Thanks Allen.

Dr T

jomarchan:

http://www.magictao.co.uk

sell it at
£49:99 + free shipping.

Though I cannot find it on their web page but if you type RV FLB into Google--UK pages--it comes up

Alakazam are advertising it at £42:50

Allen Tipton