talkmagic.co.uk

As a new and green magician I actually used to believe in the hype that went with dealers adverts. As a consequence I bought a considerable amount of stuff that did not make me an instant magician with no effort required. OK, maybe that was my fault, but is it not wrong to post videos that must obviously miss whole chunks of what actually happens to make an effect look easy and great? Go to http://www.magicshop.co.uk and type in Triage in search (sorry, too much of a Luddite to understand how to post a link!), what is shown is clearly totally impossible. That just cannot be done as is shown. How do people get away with this sort of dishonesty? I totally understand the principal of Caveat Emptor but if a car company advertised a car driving along the road but when you bought it you found it had no engine then that would be illegal. Why is magic advertising exempt from this? Sorry about the rant but really, there are people out there who need to be protected, even need to be shown across the road by a grown up, somebody will actually believe that this trick can look exactly like this. It just ain't true. To quote Jed from Poldark, "it ain't right, it ain't fair, it ain't proper"!

Similar thoughts have been expressed on occasion here. Without naming names (and therefore risking the threat of legal action!) the Mods have noted quite a few 'whiz bang, must have, easy to do out of the box, makes you an instant famous magish' effects which turn out to be anything but.

Perhaps we should be less reserved in our assessment and review of such items and just tell it like it is?

I used to tell wonderful lies when I was a magic dealer! Of course I lived in Blackpool which is probably the most crooked town in the UK. My ads in Abra magazine were classic and I used get people sending in their money to me in droves whereas I once remember that Ken Brooke once said he would be lucky if he ever got one order from Abra. I actually have one or two of my ads somewhere. If I can find them I will post them. My favourite bit of rubbish was a trick I invented called "Absolutely Out of this World" which I advertised as better than the regular OOTW because you don't have to stop halfway through the deck. It sold like hot cakes. I only got two complaints. One was from that old duffer Hubert Lambert in Dublin who said it was a load of rubbish and I answered him back saying he was quite right and I agreed with him 100 percent and that the trick was only for buying and selling. Old Hubert saw the humour in it which alas was not shared by that old misery Clifford Davis who kept sending it back to me saying the backs of the cards were different shades. After sending him two replacement packs I got fed up with him and advised him to do the trick in a dim light! For some reason I never heard from him again.

The moral of the tale is caveat emptor. There are a lot of wicked people just like me out there.

I used to be very similar to you Johnny when I first started out, all enthusiastic and naive. I'd buy all the flash bang over hyped tricks because they looked great on the videos. But over time I realised that all is not what it seems and I'm now I'm a cynical old hag who wont touch anything that looks too good to be true unless it's either been released by someone I trust or has had a fair few reliable reviews written about it.

I do agree though, alot of what it written in the hype or shown in the video is misleading and as someone who used to work in marketing I'm pretty sure that if you were to take some of these sellers through trading standards, they'd find themselves in very hot water.

In response to Mark, I have worked in a number of industries, they have all used advertising and none of the adverts were ever telling the truth or at least the whole truth! However, I do differentiate between the written word which Marks ads used and edited videos. It is one thing to say in writing that a torn and restored card can be magically reassembled, it is another thing to show something on a video which is just not possible.

The Advertising Standards Authority mission statement is that, 'we're here to make sure that all advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful' so ought to cover promos which are misleading by missing out part of the routine - obviously the question of revelation of the method needs to be taken into account.

If a promo uses crafty editing to infer the effect then it's not acceptable. Georges Melies used such camera tricks to entertain but wasn't selling anything on the strength of his films.

I've just viewed a promo for a new release which is described as self working and easy yet a significant and very important section of the effect is edited out - obviously there's something extra which needs to be happening but the write up and inference of the vid suggests nothing of the sort.

Here here, I think half my posts on here involve me being suckered by some promo vid somehow, or asking others what they think of it mostly to be met with 'don't do it Mr Cat, await a review.'

Personally I think it is prety appauling what you can appear to get away with when promoting your new gimmick on video sometimes. And because of these it's hard to tell sometimes if you're missing out or not as sometimes maybe they really can be as good as they look, tho that's pretty damn rare from my experience. I always feel a bit bad when it comes to review time, wondering if it's just me being a bit lazy in my gimmick creation or whatever is required of the latest whiz bang thing, and try to make them as fair as I can but often I've wanted to have this rant. I think a DIY and additional tools needed type of rating could be handy, I may add them to my reviews from now on. Perhaps some more liberal 'not satisfied, money back' deals would see the best sellers list on these sites look quite different too. And where do they get all these amazing reviews to put under the video? The old boys club?

I take it Triage isn't all it looks on the video haha, I thought it looked amazing and yes I was sorely tempted, I'd probably have it now on the basis of that if I hadn't just bought some other similar things instead haha, oh well. Do we need to start some kind of petition? It would be nice to be able to be confident and not be forced to be a 'cynical old hag' when it comes to viewing magic adverts surely? We generally all view any adverts which a bit of healthy cynicism as their entire purpose is to make us want something we don't need, but magic ad's take this to a whole new level. And yea it really pees me off too!

I'm still a sucker haha, and I still have that optimism thinking maybe this is the one that meets up to the vid. That hasn't happened yet tho Extreme Burn 2 comes close, tho it does say on the box 'now completely eximanable'....erm, no it isn't unless I'm missing something massive.

A lot of magic shops do think they are above the law when it comes to selling absolutely falsely advertised junk. Any kind of authority who deals with false advertisements would not be afraid to take legal action. Just find a dealer who is willing to tell you whether a product is rubbish or not. Not naming any but there are a few out there who I always buy from, and as said always await a review before buying!

my local shop is run by a working pro who knows my style and steers me away from anything over hyped or wouldn't suit me.

I don't mind the adds that ellude to the fact that this trick is going to make you famous. Because in that case I would hope that the buyer is aware that any trick can make you famous. In fact this Triage can make you famous, because it is never the effect, it is the performance and of course luck. However what I would like in magic advertizing is too see the effect done from begining to end. These broken up montages just send me in the other direction. The way I see it, if it can't stand up on its own then what is it they are hiding. just show the effect from taking out of the pocket/table what have you all the way to putting it away in one shot. If that is too much to accomplish then I don't want it.

I found one of my Abra ads from about 45 years ago. I shall reveal the truth of the matter in my next post though. Anyway here it is:

ABSOLUTELY OUT OF THIS WORLD
The miracle improvement to Paul Curry’s classic effect. NO STOPPING HALFWAY THROUGH DEAL. Spectator deals pack into two face-down piles; when cards are turned over, one side is all red, the other side all black. The secret is a trick pack, but what a trick pack! Can be thoroughly examined. You can even play a game of cards with them. As purchased by Robert Harbin, Silvan, etc. MARKETING RIGHTS EXCLUSIVELY HELD BY MARK LEWIS STUDIO. £ 1 post free in U.K. $4 airmail to U.S. Other countries please send enough to cover postage.

ALSO:--
CUPS and COLOURS
As performed by Mark Lewis all over the country. One of the greatest close-up tricks ever invented. Beautifully made multi-coloured cups specially imported from Holland and assembled at our factory. Price 50 pence post free in U.K. Airmail to U.S. $2

THE VANISHING ROYAL
This is the finest Three Card Monte in existence. The standard effect but superior to anything you have ever seen. Made to rigorous specifications at our factory on the premises. NOT FOR SALE. This item is FREE to any customer who makes a purchase exceeding £1. This offer is open to callers only.

FINALLY:--
We will shortly be announcing the opening of the Mark Lewis Magic Theatre. A regular weekly evening of close-up magic by one of the world’s finest card magicians. WATCH OUT FOR FURTHER DETAILS.

MARK LEWIS MAGIC STUDIO,
SUITE A, 12 -14 DICKSON ROAD, BLACKPOOL, LANCS.
TELEPHONE BLACK POOL (0253) 24955
Open seven days a week
(subject to professional commitments)
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

OK. Here is the truth behind the above ad. Incidentally all the above tricks had been advertised individually for weeks beforehand and I sold a ton of them with the most blatant misrepresenation which I am very proud of.

By way of explanation "Absolutely Out of This World" was a svengali deck with the reds cut short and the blacks left as they were. If you flick half the deck one way they are all black and the other way all red. That was how it worked. I invented it and it was the biggest load of bilge I ever came up with. I sold loads and loads though! Robert Harbin and Silvan did indeed buy it. They must have been gravely disappointed in their purchase!

And to my great delight I have just found one left over from 45 years ago. Amazingly it is as good as new although the box is naturally a little bedraggled. It is new because I never used it and was never sold.

The Cups and Colours trick was simply the little plastic cups and balls. I disguised the title and description so the idiot magicians wouldn't realise what it was. Ali Bongo was daft enough to buy one which was ironic because he was the one who first sold it to me when he worked in a magic shop. I was a teenager at the time.

The cups were egg cups and were indeed made in Holland but I purchased them from the local grocery store. My "factory" was a table in my office.

As was the Vanishing Royal which of course is the Dutch Looper. I used to make 14 out of one regular deck. I would make all 14 in about ten minutes. It was indeed "made to rigorous specifications at our factory on the premises" . I just had to make sure I cut them properly and put the glue on correctly.

As for the Mark Lewis Magic Theatre that was just a room in my office premises. I only got one punter come in. He was an old man with nothing much to do in Blackpool. And of course I shall let you guess who "one of the world's finest card magicians was"!

Johnny Wizz wrote:As a new and green magician I actually used to believe in the hype that went with dealers adverts. As a consequence I bought a considerable amount of stuff that did not make me an instant magician with no effort required. OK, maybe that was my fault, but is it not wrong to post videos that must obviously miss whole chunks of what actually happens to make an effect look easy and great? Go to http://www.magicshop.co.uk" target="_blank" target="_blank and type in Triage in search (sorry, too much of a Luddite to understand how to post a link!), what is shown is clearly totally impossible. That just cannot be done as is shown. How do people get away with this sort of dishonesty? I totally understand the principal of Caveat Emptor but if a car company advertised a car driving along the road but when you bought it you found it had no engine then that would be illegal. Why is magic advertising exempt from this? Sorry about the rant but really, there are people out there who need to be protected, even need to be shown across the road by a grown up, somebody will actually believe that this trick can look exactly like this. It just ain't true. To quote Jed from Poldark, "it ain't right, it ain't fair, it ain't proper"!

FWIW, car companies advertise cars driving along a road without showing the hours of dedication, learning, lessons and practice required to learn to smoothly drive a car. Do you also consider that misleading? Are they falsely advertising the ease with which one can pilot a car down the road?

Nobody but yourself to blame if you buy an effect without proper research or find it requires more work than you expected to make it work. IMHO at least.

FWIW, car companies advertise cars driving along a road without showing the hours of dedication, learning, lessons and practice required to learn to smoothly drive a car. Do you also consider that misleading? Are they falsely advertising the ease with which one can pilot a car down the road?

Nobody but yourself to blame if you buy an effect without proper research or find it requires more work than you expected to make it work. IMHO at least.[/quote]

No, I don't have a problem with the trick requiring work to make it look good. What I have a problem with is something being shown on a promo video that is impossible. Something which only looks good because the video has been edited to make the effect look like something that it is not. If that same car ad implied that the car will drive but fails to tell you that when you buy it you need to put an engine in it then I do have a problem. So many magic trick promo videos are I am afraid blatantly dishonest because the effect as shown cannot be done how've rear much work you put in, however good it is.

I think there's a massive difference between magic and other advertising. If you see an add for a car and the guy/girl driving around doing crazy stunts and stuff, you already know how to drive most likely and if you don't you still don't buy into the fact that you too can do crazy stunts just by buying that model of car. It's "just an advert..." but with magic and the way it's done you are led to believe that you too CAN do crazy stunts when you buy this gimmick. Yes work will be needed but still, it's magic, and what you see on the vid should be fairly representative of what you can achieve. A pinch of salt has to be taken with all adverts but in our case here you expect to be able to do exactly what you see on the vid, whatever amount of work it may take.

It's all a bit grey really because yes the folk advertising want to make a cool and swish looking vid which really only comes though with some nice editing, but in the case of magic I think it's fair to ask for some kind of representation of the full routine, not just the beginning and end. Advertising in general will always be misleading to some folk as its entire purpose is to 'big things up' so you want them. My guess is that as magicians we feel a bit niffed (some of us) because magic should really be sold on the merits of its full performance which is what we'll all be using it for. It has a purpose and we buy it on the basis of what it looks like and how we think we can use it.

You buy a car to get from A to B, regardless of what crazy shenanigans it does on the advert. You're not disappointed when it can't change into a transformer
You buy a magic trick to do magic and look as cool as the person you saw doing it, and you are disappointed when you realise the vid has been edited to hell and back and the routine is quite far from what you watched.