theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

The Pass

Hey Patrick,

It looks pretty decent for 3 months - I would suggest tilting your hands downloads a bit more during the move itself - while the top of the deck seems pretty undisturbed throughout the action, the clean-up underneath the deck flashes a bit.

This could also just be the camera angle - for real people, the eye level of the spectator would be much higher, and more pointed downward towards your hands. Unless you're performing for kids, or the emmy-award winning Peter Dinklage.

Regardless, you're definitely on your way for only 3 months - keep it up :)

I'd also love to see other's passes. Jason England does a great pass, and Brian Hart also has brilliantly smooth pass which I caught on camera a few years back at Magic-Con. Let's see what you guys got!
 
Thanks for the tips, I'll change up my angles a bit. Both Aaron Fisher and Alex Pandrea have great passes as well.
 
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I've been working on the pass for 5 or so years and it still isn't great. Every few months I'll find something that helps it every so slightly. And I keep referring back to Jason England's download which is awesome. I highly suggest you get it.
 
Looks absolutely great for three months, its probably better than mine which I have been doing probably for about a year now, but that doesn't matter, my real baby is the hermann pass.

Angles yes, but something else is maybe use your right hand a little more, this requires body/hand movement to cover more, but is also puts less tension on your hands, and allows you to do it smoother. But thats just the way I like to do it.
 
Your pass looks really good, especially for three months. My only suggestion would be to remove the unnecessary jiggling and riffling after you complete the pass as it draws attention to your hands at the exact moment you don't want it to be there. As magicians we know that it isn't suspicious but an audience will not feel the same way. That aside, I think you're doing incredibly well.

Angles yes, but something else is maybe use your right hand a little more, this requires body/hand movement to cover more, but is also puts less tension on your hands, and allows you to do it smoother. But thats just the way I like to do it.
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I don't think it's necessary to use more movement with the right hand, as Erdnase says, "We believe the blind is much more perfect if there is not the least change in the attitude of the right fingers during or immediately after the shift". Tension can be completely eliminated from the shift by applying minimal pressure in the correct places which is why Erdnase suggests that the lower packet is held firmly against the left thumb which also assists with the transposition of the two packets. This principle can be seen much more clearly in the SWE shift, and others, but also applies to the classic pass.
 
Erdnase is interesting with the SWE Shift because he says the motion should be accomplished quickly and I find that doing it slowly is much harder to see. That's off topic though, thank you all for the support. I'm taking note of all your suggestions and I'll post an updated video in the next month or two.
 
Looks great to me.

There's a tiny bit of finger flutter in the left hand, but it's not terribly noticeable at this point.

I will say this, and I don't know if this is just because you're doing for a web cam, but don't pull the deck back when you do the move. This is a habit a lot of people have of subconsciously trying to hide a sleight by pulling it closer to themselves to overshadow it with their body. Avoid that. To break that habit, I literally practiced the pass with my elbows on a table, or with my hands straight out in front of me.

Note: I don't actually perform the pass that way, it just broke the habit of trying to hide the move.
 
Oh, the retracting motion itself wasn't a way of hiding the pass, it was more of a justification for the motion of the pass. I extended my arms and spread the deck in the same fashion of offering the spectator a selection. They pick a card, I show the card, I bring my hands back and perform the pass in the action of closing the spread and retracting. But I understand what you're saying, I agree. Less is more with the pass. Thanks for the input!
 
I definitely agree with less is more, I think any attempt to justify the motion of the pass is likely to just end up drawing more attention to it. All that needs to happen is for the hands to come together for a second while the audiences attention is elsewhere. The fact is, aside from exceptional cases, the classic pass is never going to be truly invisible (and certainly not if you intend to perform for more than two people) so it's better to focus on making it psychologically invisible.
 
Aaron Fisher has an incredible pass, he could do a pass with people staring at his hands. But I agree, I feel like the "Perfect Pass" isn't really an attainable sleight for most people. Thanks for your viewpoints.
 
Some really great tips here, I'm liking the discussion. Any pass done on camera is naturally at a disadvantage, because a pass is supposed to be done on the offbeat regardless - unless you're good enough at the move to use it as a color change.

I found what ChristopherT said about breaking the habit very interesting - I know many magicians (including myself at times) who when practicing in front of mirror, will subconsciously blink their eyes when doing the move. I know a fair few magicians who broke that habit by having a rubberband around their wrist, and snapping themselves anytime they did their 'habit' or 'tick'.

Anyone have similar bad habits when it comes to practicing or performing? How do you personally solve the problem? I'd like to hear what y'all have to say about it :)
 
Aaron Fisher has an incredible pass, he could do a pass with people staring at his hands. But I agree, I feel like the "Perfect Pass" isn't really an attainable sleight for most people. Thanks for your viewpoints.
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Aaron Fisher certainly has an incredible pass. However, he said in his recent lecture (I'm paraphrasing) "I've got a reputation as somebody who could do the pass when my hands are being burned. Maybe in certain situations that's true, but that's why you've got to trust me when I say that I don't"

Many of his effects are constructed so the shift can be executed at a moment when the maximum cover is provided, a perfect example of this is the Gravity Half Pass in Revolution Number 9.

He discusses some of these thoughts in a Card Magic Minute in the context of the Outjogged Herman Shift although these principles are equally applicable to all shift work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdkrtzIL1uE
 
Hey Pav, just curious, what resources are you using to learn from? Which books/dvds/downloads? One thing that helped me a lot after I'd read up on the pass in a few card books was a dvd simply called "Richard Kauffman On The Pass". Fantastic resource that helped me a lot.

By the way, has anyone ever seen Dan Hauss do the pass in front of a layman? His cover is looking right at them and saying "Do you know what a pass is?"... for him, it works every time!
 
RobAnderson said:
Hey Pav, just curious, what resources are you using to learn from? Which books/dvds/downloads? One thing that helped me a lot after I'd read up on the pass in a few card books was a dvd simply called "Richard Kauffman On The Pass". Fantastic resource that helped me a lot.
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I was actually using the same material from Richard Kauffman. I picked up a few different downloads as well. I looked at Alex Pandrea's Brick Pass and Diagonal Palm Pass, Jason England's Classic Pass and Brian Hart's Hart Pass. They all have different tips and ideas about the pass and I sort of made a weird hybrid version of the pass. But those are my main sources for instruction on this sleight.
 
One good tip if it hasn't already been said is that after selecting a card, when you place the cards from your right hand back onto the deck, the cards above your break should be left messy, so you have a reason to fiddle with the cards(as tho you are squaring the cards up only) . It's definitely better than having the deck being completely neat and thus you have no reason to be fiddling with the cards.
 
ZachMueller said:
I know many magicians (including myself at times) who when practicing in front of mirror, will subconsciously blink their eyes when doing the move. I know a fair few magicians who broke that habit by having a rubberband around their wrist, and snapping themselves anytime they did their 'habit' or 'tick'.
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I get that very much, I usually just force myself to not do it.
 
RobAnderson said:
Hey Pav, just curious, what resources are you using to learn from? Which books/dvds/downloads? One thing that helped me a lot after I'd read up on the pass in a few card books was a dvd simply called "Richard Kauffman On The Pass". Fantastic resource that helped me a lot.

By the way, has anyone ever seen Dan Hauss do the pass in front of a layman? His cover is looking right at them and saying "Do you know what a pass is?"... for him, it works every time!
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I honestly can't understand why the Richard Kauffman pass video is so popular aside from the fact that he's a 'big name'. It's only value is in demonstrating how not to do the pass. It's truly one of the most god awful things I've ever seen from a 'professional' in this area. It's filled with tension and unnatural movements. I believe his passes are only invisible from the point of view of a magician, in that it is difficult to actually see the packets transposing. This doesn't matter if you're drawing attention to your hands the moment the pass happens, your spectators will be left with no doubt that something happened even if they aren't sure what. You could wildly flail your arms around as you do the pass and it would be technically invisible, although not particularly deceptive. Using a brute force approach to the pass along with absurd covers results in much the same thing. I think it's a shame when people who are so respected come out with such junk as people understandably believe it's a source they can trust, unfortunately on many occasions this isn't true.

I haven't see Dan Hauss do a pass so I can't really comment on it although I'm always a bit skeptical of the advice which suggests you look somebody in the eye or say their name then do the pass for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it seems to rely on the assumption you're performing for one person, I'm not really sure how this principle applies when you're surrounded by 10+ people. Secondly, from personal experience, it simply just doesn't always work. This is not to say it doesn't work for Dan Hauss, he's obviously a very different performer from me and what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for everyone. A believe a better approach is by considering the structure of an effect and designing it in such a way so that the audience has something else to look at when you do the pass. For example, when a spectator is looking at a card and showing everybody, that's a good moment to do the pass. Obviously you can't do every move at this time, but moments with an equal level of atttention elsewhere should be searched for, or created if necessary. All sleights should ideally be done in these sorts of moments whether it's a shift or a double turnover. As Erdnase said "The expert, failing to improve upon the method, changes the moment".

I believe these principles have been largely disregarded in modern magic as can be seen in many of the effects sold today which seem to encourage staring at the hands while executing endless double turnovers and colour changes. These effects are not fooling or mystifying audiences to anywhere near the extent a lot of people think they are.
 
Well, "What not to do with the pass" is still a valuable resource. I don't copy someone's pass move for move; I look over what they think works and what doesn't work and see what works best for me. I learned the SWE Shift from Chris Kenner but I still think his shift is one of the worst I've ever seen. You don't necessarily have to follow the instructions word for word, I just consider them guidelines.
 
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