talkmagic.co.uk

Hello all,

Thought I'd better introduce myself - I'm a 23 year old male, living in Colchester (Essex) who has held a deep interest in magic from childhood, particularly 'mentalism', and the psychology of such.

I am by no means a serious magician, though occasionally my interest peeks, after dreaming up ideas which I struggle to simply shrug off... I'm a huge fan of the type of magic Derren Brown would typically be seen to perform - the sort of magic which I would describe as relying less on complex gimmicks, and more on well executed simple(ish) but strong concepts. Don't get me wrong - I'm fully aware that Derren himself cannot, and presumably will not, claim to have never utilised gimmicks - but, as I'm sure the majority of you will agree; there's a substantial and notable gap between 'tricks relying on gimmicks' and 'tricks involving gimmicks'.

Somewhat inspired by Derren's lottery prediction; having quickly concluded there was only one possible way the effect could have been achieved - given the scenario in which the effect was performed - I set out to achieve the same effect in a less, in my opinion, cheat-like way... for several weeks my mind ran wild with many ideas, some strong, some weak - having eventually settled on a method which met my personal requirements; I gave it a go. And here is the result... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnDGZRhjksY&feature=plcp not the best performance, admittedly, but the method being essentially what mattered.

Several years prior to this - yes this is how un-often I ideas spring to mind - I had spent a while considering a method for the classic 'cap in bottle' - having came to an apparent original yet simple way of achieving the effect... I'm yet to see anybody perform it in quite the same way, on, say, YouTube. I once had a brilliant video of me performing this, which I have unfortunately lost.

From this I discovered that I very much enjoy constructing methods for magic effects, and since then I've been seeking fresh effects to construct new methods for.

Most recently I set out to design a simple trick which could be performed close up, with as few props and little prep as possible. Honing in on coins, since they're so common, I eventually constructed a 100% reliable method for performing a classic 'which hand' prediction effect. Working on the South Bank, London, I was considering, in my lunch hour, performing the trick to the public in hope of a little coffee money - so whatever the effect was; it had to be reliable, impromptu and ideally with an aspect of betting, as a cheeky way of pulling in the money. I never did go and perform to the public - may still do - though, to my expectation; I have since found that my method is not original. Nevertheless; I enjoyed thinking outside-of-the-box to construct an effect from the ground up.

If you happen to have an effect you'd like a method for, but are struggling somewhat; please don't hesitate to get in touch. I would very much enjoy the challenge.

Thanks for reading...

Tabby :)

Tabby,

Another local Essexite!!

Sounds very interesting, i am not far from you, perhaps we should have a beer and a chinwag sometime...

Much love

Aza