Original Music and Awesome Magic.

Apr 22, 2008
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Well.. I don't know..
First of all, if u do something to impress laymen or magicians, I don't care, u should look professional. No offence, but u should cut your hair and buy a T-shirt that fits u.
And for magic.. I think u should show just the reactions, and a little bit of magic, not the whole trick. And get a friend, who knows how to make good films.
We all did same mistakes, and we improve. Look at my friend Tomas Šimkus. He's is taking it seriously, don't do bull****. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnBCeYtAFLg&feature=channel_page

Cheers, Julius
 
I honestly stopped watching after 2 minutes.

It wasnt keeping me entertained at all.

Your look, is definately 'different.' I would definately be labelled as 'alternative' but for me, you somewhat came off as a 'hobo' magician. The hair, the glasses, the shirt, and the boots? all took alot away from your magic.

The editing, and filmwork aswell was also below average.

Overall your magic was not bad, your look needs improving (I dont care if its your 'style' you can have a similar style, with a bit of taste), the video production needed work aswell.

At times I thought you were a bit like a Criss Angel impersonator, which I also did not like.

One final thing, I hate when a magician starts off with 'Do you like Magic?'

Looking forward to seeing some improvements.

Cheers,
Matt
 
Not good.
The magic wasn't good, breaks were visible, as were the sleights, it was not smooth and didn't have any story, it was uninteresting and not impressive.
As a TV show, not a chance: It was poorly produced, the voice over at the start was very gain-y and a few times we heard you do some weird thing which sounded like spitting. The lighting was bad, the arbitrary effects and filters applied were out of place, you joking with the camera man, and the camera providing instruction in the trick wasn't good. Your look wasn't great, hobo style hair, and stupid shades, the t-shirt didn't even fit you! So then the shots of you posing, were retarded, because they weren't good poses, and you looked like an idiot doing them. The text was stupid because as a TV show, I would recommend doing your own logos, and don't do YouTube-er-esque fonts, it looks out of place.

Overall, I can't say a good thing about it, except for Pressure was performed all right. But really bad, that will never be a TV show.

Tom Field
 
I agree with all of the points above. And I have one question which the answer would be very good for us to use to help you improve.

What is the purpose of the video, and what were you trying to achieve with it?

To me right now, it seems like it didn't really have a purpose.
 
Nov 16, 2008
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In the not to distant future
Oh goody. another magician who thinks he has a show. on youtube.
Honestly, I did not like it. I found the performances were bland and poorly done. Try talking to your audience, not at them or the camera.

Those beeps were very loud and annoying. Those poses were rather amusing, but I'm sure you did not intend it to be that way. Especially the first pose with the crossed arms. Sorry you do not look the type to be doing that.

One last thing, I was not a fan of the music. I applaud you for trying to make your own music, but this was not very good.
 
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Apologies about the Boot comment then mate,

Didnt mean to offend if it did in any way.

I just thought perhaps one shoe/boot was the new cool thing these days, and I didnt understand it at all haha!

Ps; Great effort on taking all the feedback on board, and being mature. Really speaks to me that your a good member of this community. Well done.
 
Thanks for all of the advice guys. You all have very good points, and I will take them into account next time.

I am glad you take criticism well, this gives me a reason to give you some, as some people on here totally ignore it.

Why would I not show the whole tricks? I mean it's about the magic, not just the reactions.

As I understand, you are doing quite well in entertaining your audience, I would try and work on your presentation I would recommend you to buy a book called Maximum Entertainment by Ken Weber, and apply it to your work, this should help, but also watch other successful magicians to see how they entertain and how they show themselves with style and character. I think this maybe what you were lacking, however, everyone can always improve!

Your look did not look impressive, I do not mean this in a bad way, but a magician should normally look one notch higher better.

As for not showing the whole tricks, I believe this is true to a certain extent, when watching we (us viewing your film) want to see the best bits, we want to see everything cut! Because it is a film after all and this is what a film should display. If Criss Angel, for example, showed everything he did, it would look even worse than it does now, same goes to David Blaine, Barry and Stuart, and all the other TV performers.

The boot is only on one leg because my Achilles tendon is partially torn. I have to wear it or I might have to have surgery. Don't worry, I hate how boots look too.

Hope that heels soon mate, and hope all is well with it.

Also, I'm not really a fan of Criss Angel, but I can understand people might think that because of my hair.

I don't mind which magician you prefer, but what is going on with your hair? :p

Also, I don't want a TV show, just a series of tricks on Youtube. The reason I joked with the camera guy is because I want to come across as a human being.

My advice would be to maybe only have about a minute, and try and squeeze everything you did in the previous video and put it in a minute long video, I bet it can be done very nicely without anything being rushed. But just having the film edited correctly and cut in the right places. This would speed up the process, and would be much nicer to the audience who are viewing the film to their eyes.

My point of making this is to entertain, even if that didn't happen.

You may be entertaining the audience, however, it didn't come across very entertaining for the people watching the film. Get some clips of the audience laughing and screaming, this gives a chain reaction. Trust me it works, when you hear someone laugh in a room, the mood changes everyone looks and may laugh with them, or just feel happy within themselves, we are human and we react to each other. So get these reaction shots in! They give the view watching the film a much happier mood when watching!


I don't really care about entertaining magicians, I want to entertain the average person. Judging by the reactions, that happened.

Film it! :D

Music is pretty subjective, so I'm not too worried about one person not liking it.

Music can be changed easily, it is the magic mainly and the filming/editing.

Once again, I thank you guys for being totally honest. So, what should I do to make it better next time?

Glad you take criticism well. :D Keep it up dude.
 
Being myself is the thing that I learned most at a Wayne Houchin lecture I went to. I just prefer being me. In this video myself didn't shine trough well.

I understand that you have to be yourself, however, there is being yourself as an everyday person and then there is being yourself as a performer.

If you was being yourself as an everyday person, no one would find that interesting, unless you were a different character.

In contrast to that, being yourself as a performer is 100% better.

When I have worked with, Wayne Dobson, Terry Seabrooke, Paul Daniels, Ali Bongo, and so forth, all of them are great guys as them selves. Soon as they go on that stage, they perform, they are 100% louder, 100% bigger, 100% entertaining, and this makes them a 100% magician. They change completely. Some people call it "performance mode".
 
May 3, 2008
618
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You should be yourself with your same personality and all, but the idea is to be yourself but exaggerated.
 
Sep 2, 2007
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I didn;t like it. and if you're going to try and do something like 'seasons' (which I look down u[on but I'm not going to get into that) invest in a small mic for your shirt. you will actually be able to hear yourself when you edit it, and try to get it so that you can still hear the spectators reactions.
 
May 18, 2008
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Alright... Time for some feedback!

I applaud your idea. The idea and determination it takes to go out there and film, write music, and put it all together in front of a bunch of rabid magicians takes guts. Good job!

The only thing was, is that the entire thing was edited pretty poorly, the camera-work was not good, and the idea was too unoriginal.

Allow me to expand.

Editing:

The editing wasn't good. The music got cut off, the spectators reactions got cut off before they started, the transitional scenes are overused in YouTube, and there are a lot of things you could have done to make it look more proffesional.

I think you could have used more fade-ins and fade-outs. If you just have a scene cut to another without a fade in or fade out, it sounds bad UNLESS the sound is going into another similar sound.

I.E. if you have a spectator scream, and you cut the noise to go to another spectator screaming at a trick, it fits well. After the screams, fade it out to go on to something else. In the video, you have it to where it just cuts and cuts and cuts.

Oh, and you need to toggle the volume a bit. The beeps were too loud and the music and sound weren't completely together from a volume standpoint.

Camera-Work:

Instead of just telling you that it was bad quality and the sound was hard to hear, I shall give help from experience.

The only video camera I have is one that was bought about 4 years ago. It's video quality is that of just over a cellphone and its audio is LESS than a cellphone.

There is a way to make that work for just a little money.

If you can, first find a friend who has a better camera (or even a worse one) and borrow it if you can. If it is better, use it. If it is worse, there is more help below.

If you have a worse camera and yours, you can actually make both into one semi-functional camera. Take the friends camera and use it to record JUST audio. On 95% of cameras or camcorders, the audio is crystal clear if you record it WITHOUT video. With video, it isn't great.

Then use the other camera at the same time you are using your camera to record audio as you are using yours to record video. Audio is truthfully what makes a big difference in film. Just sync up the audio from one camera and the video from the other. You get a pretty good clip. (Try it, it works).

The other help I can give you is use the same technique above with a voice recorder. Many MP3 players record fairly high quality voice and you can sync that up, or many HQ voice recorders are only about 20 or 30 bucks. If you do this though, be sure to tape your voice recorder to a tripod during filming. This helps very much to reduce crinkling of the sound if you don't touch the object recording the sound in question.

Also, many cameras that are just for taking pictures will take video that is higher quality than the one you used here.

I'm not saying that the video quality was unbearable, it just could be improved for a little money with the same ideas I give above.

Idea:

The whole idea of the video was basically the same idea that David Blaine used (and it wasn't really original to him, either) that Criss Angel copied and that people continue to use. People understand that there aren't any paid stooges. They understand that there aren't camera tricks. It isn't to say that you shouldn't say so, but it has been used and makes you seem like a poser.

I also feel that it also never came to a complete stop (and niether will the episode in question). If you notice, every David Blaine special, every Criss Angel episode, every David Copperfield or Darren Brown special ALWAYS had a point it was building up too. For example, the Dive of Death by David Blaine.

The entire special was focused around magic and the idea of the Dive of Death and that you can push your own limits. It has that as the main idea the entire time and because of that, people watching come out feeling like it came full circle.

I am in no way telling you to make a Dive of Death or even that it has to be a deadly stunt. You could build the entire episode on say... Misdirection.

Begin by telling the viewers that you are going to teach them a lesson in misdirection and how magicians fool. Then use that as the theme that ties it all togehter and end with a demonstration or trick that encompasses that and really brings the whole thing 360 degrees while fooling them completely with the idea.

Just don't do what every magician has done. Come up with an original idea.





That is about all the feedback I can give at the moment. Don't let this discourage you. I always have enjoyed specials like that and would love to see one of yours when it is done.

Just make sure that you are ready to release it when you do. I understand it is YouTube, but this kinda thing travels with you. If the Buck's had released something like this when they were younger, this would be brought back, and back and back and they would be made fun of for it. Might have even made a career changing difference.

Good job on the music though! If you need any more help with anything I listed, feel free to PM me!

Sorry if I sounded mean!
 
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May 18, 2008
807
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I also forgot to mention something.

If you are ever filming a live magic trick or show for some people, I always try to let the people who I know are ok with bieng filmed know in advance that they are going to be. If I am just going up to random people with the video camera, then I will talk to them first. I notice that in your video, everyone seems to start by staring at the camera.

This makes them distracted from the magic. Even if it doesn't seem like it, it does. Try and make sure they know in advance and are comfortable with it.

If you get a bad clip, don't use it. If you really want it to appear proffesional, don't settle for "so-so" clips or reactions. Only use the best stuff, unless the point of it is that you are filming an entire show.
 
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