As much as I appreciate anyone that makes these nice bottles for a living - its not "their" thing.
Jimmy, welcome to the forums, and I'm glad you've finally chosen now as the time to stop lurking, and start participating. However to the best of my knowledge there is only one person making a living from doing the deck in bottles, and that person is Jamie Grant. It's his thing. I know of no other who sells this product.
Let those help you, help you. For those who don't want to help- don't discourage him/her from doing so.
The problem I have with this statement is that it makes me feel like you aren't considering all the possible points of view here, and encouraging someone for the sake of doing so. Not all decisions are good ones, some are illegal, some are immoral, some are unethical, while others still remain in the grey realm of not good ideas (for what ever reason).
make anything! Experiment, and make mistakes...
Forgive me Jimmy, but I can't help but feel that making a AIP knock off bottle would be one of those. A mistake that is.
This is the way I see it. Apple makes the Iphone, a device a lot of people love to use. If someone were to go out and buy all the necessary parts, and assemble their own Iphone from scratch, install their own knock off Iphone OS, and slap an Apple logo on the back; what they may have is an Iphone, but it's not a legit one. It's an imitation at best, at worst it's infringing on Apple's product. Removing the obvious legal questions from this above hypothetical problem we still have the remaining moral problem. The moral issue being whether it's right or wrong to intentionally build a direct copy of another's well known, established, (and in this case trademarked) product? Sure other similar products have emerged since the Iphone's debute, but other companies are smart enough to alter or change something about the design, look, or function, thus making it similar but different enough that Apple won't pursue them for intellectual property, copy right, or other trademark issues. But we're not talking about making similar (but different) bottles here. We're talking about strait up reproducing what Mr. Grant does.
Let's bring this down a notch, and look at it from a magicians perspective. Let's say that you Mr. Jimmy Chung (or any of you on this board for that matter) have spent the last ten years of your life dedicated to the pursuit of mastering cardistry. Let's say you've gotten so bloody damn good at it that your moves are what you are known for. People book you to travel around the world to show off your leet skillz. Roxorz! Lets purpose that you've gotten so good at this, and so well known for your talent that you've got a couple of moves that you created that are indeed original to you, and these moves are what you've become known for. Now let's assume that you've got performance videos somewhere online (your website, maybe even youtube) that some teenager has watched, dissected, and analyzed. This kid is going around posting videos to all the forums showing off
your stuff! What's worse, he's getting credit for doing your material. How would that make
you feel?
I'll tell you right now that if there is a man (or woman) among you who tells me it wouldn't bother you then either you are so far in denial it's not funny OR you have an unrealistic perspective on this situation because I'm positive that if this happened to you "pissed" would be an understatement. Perhaps hurt would be another emotion that you'd experience. These are card moves, sure anyone can perform them. Sure you can't copy right them, but it's YOUR thing. It's what YOU'RE known for and this upstart is doing your act. Frankly you'd have every right to be pissed. The sad thing is this kind of piracy happens all the time. Sometimes it's out right intentional, other times it is more accidental as the intentions are good natured, but it still happens.
The Anything Is Possible bottle (AKA, card box in bottle), and the subsequent empowering motivational message behind it is something Mr. Grant has become known for inside our community, not just here at Theory11 but with magicians around the world. I've personally witnessed him carry on full conversations, effortlessly, with
huge names in our industry because he's earned their respect for his work. That and he's also friends with them too which helps. Unlike other so called magicians with their greasy used car salesman vibe, and alternative motivations to market their own blogs and self improvement products that we've seen here in the past; Jamie has given freely of his time and his experience to this community with his informative essays with expecting nothing in return. No bait and switch, no asking you to buy his stuff. Just good, solid, real world advice from a real world worker. The only thing he ever asks from you is that you use his essays to make yourself a better magician. Jamie is an inspiration, and someone I think we all should be looking up to. Especially if you aren't working in our industry, and aspire to do so someday. In light of his good nature, and open desire to help people out here on this forum with their magic, we (the community) repay him by holding open conversations about how to recreate the one thing he's become known for. Sorry guys, that doesn't sit right with me.
As I said the AIP bottle is Jamie's thing, and regardless of how many sources are available explaining how this is accomplished I don't feel like this is something we all need to be openly talking about on a forum, and especially one Jamie is known to frequent. It's a hard slap in the face, and one he doesn't deserve. If you want to produce one of these bottles for yourself, your girlfriend, your pet rock, what ever then do so. Obviously we can't stop you, and it's not like the morality police will come beat your door down, but for god's sake people use some tact and don't openly discuss it like this! I would hope that you're only trying to produce a single bottle, and not say mass produce them with the intent to sell. That just begs for trouble. Honestly, I think you're in that grey area that is good natured, and done with good intentions, but I don't see it being executed properly.
I get the artist thing. If you want to make her something then it should certainly come from your heart. Taking Jamie's thing, and just reproducing it may be crafty but that's hardly from the heart. Why don't you make her a shadow box, and put some of her favorite things inside of it, represented of course, and if you seriously want to be nauseatingly sweet then intertwine elements of things she loves one one side, elements of things you love on the other, and in the middle elements of things you both love together. That will have more meaning, and emotional importance to her than just some knockoff of an AIP bottle. If that doesn't work for you, then think of something that will! You're an artist (you said so yourself) so create something! Honestly, if you want to give someone an AIP bottle, then the best way to do it is to buy it from Jamie directly, but I don't agree with posts like this. You wouldn't want someone to take and perform/do your ideas, so why would you want to do that to someone else?
